


THE DAWN OF THE PALE - The Golden Age

by TheLionessOfTheNight



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, Heavy Angst, Love/Hate, Mostly a stand-alone story, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-12 21:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 35
Words: 59,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20571572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionessOfTheNight/pseuds/TheLionessOfTheNight
Summary: Bran the Broken is the King of the seven kingdoms.A long-awaited peace comforts the spirits of those who have known the horror of the war.And yet, where most have found peace, Alyda of the rock is at war against everyone and against herself, unable to accept how her mother favored the duty to defend the king over her own daughter. Little did she know of the devastation that would overturn the fate of her entire existence and of the realm.





	1. The Golden Knight

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, you can follow my full work on tumblr (thelionessofthenight) and twitter (TheLionessOfTheNight).  
This is my first attempt at writing a story, and english is not my native language. Should you notice some mistakes, feel free to let me know. 
> 
> Comments and opinion are always welcomed, I hope to convey properly what I have in mind. This is gonna be a long journey, I hope you'll be willing to follow it.  
Thanks to all those who supported this series since the beginning, to the point of convincing me to use words other than my drawings.

When the bells of the mole echoed, Alyda dragged herself to the balcony facing the sea, while choirs of excitement came from the shores.

“Sails from the capital! Sails from the capital!”

The turmoil for such a small event was emblematic of the monotony of the Sapphire isle. While she saw the ship approaching, her mind went through all the words she had rehearsed for months by then, a lapse that tended to increase each time.  
She was sure that, sooner than later, the months between the arrival of one ship and the next one would likely become years and, along with them, the advent of the woman they would carry each time.

Ten months had passed since the last one.

  
Every night before sleeping, every hour spent in the loneliness of Evenfall Hall, and even now, from the highness of her balcony, as the ship was docking, Alyda occupied her thoughts by imagining all the possible outcomes of their next conversation. If she could call those they had ‘conversations’.

Her eyes remained fixed on the deck, while her betraying heart began hammering into her chest.

Then, she finally saw her.  
She appeared in all her glory, six feet and more of golden, shining armour, greeting all the people who had gathered on the pier to welcome her.  
The lady of their isle.

_But I’m the real lady of this rock now. The former one made sure of that when she forsake her house and decided to serve in the Kingsguard for the rest of her life._

Her thoughts were interrupted by slow, tired steps coming behind her.

“Grandfather. You missed your daughter’s great arrival.” Alyda sneered.

The old man put an hand on her back affectionately, his eyes roaming towards the now dissipating small crowd beneath them.  
“She has yet to arrive, my dear.”  
He finally said, squeezing her shoulder.  
“Needless to say how I’d appreciate a decorous behavior from you, this time.”

_This time._ “Just like all the other times?”  
She grinned, cunning.

  
He gave her a warning look, and she couldn’t blame him. After seven decades of life, losses and disappointments, he could hardly have the strenght to deal with an impudent, sour girl. And a bastard, nonetheless. He has no faults in all of this, after all.

When the old man finally headed to the stairs, Alyda followed, offering him her strong arm for support during the descent. She was particularly proud of her exceedingly tall, sturdy build in these occasions.

When they reached the great hall, one of the guards approached them in hurry.

“Lord Selwyn, she’s here...” He begun, his breath laboured by the run.

“Aye, I know, I know! Let her in.” The old man gestured, while a tired smile begun to form on his face.

When her familiar shape finally approached, Alyda felt her own blood becoming a fiery river in her veins. Her grandfather left her side to met his daughter on the way, but Alyda remained fixed on her feet like a statue in the midst of a storm.  
She observed while the two of them hugged each other, an honest, happy smile on the woman’s face, which lasted ‘til she met her gaze.

_Oh, yes, I’m still here._

“Mother.” She greeted, hoping her own voice sounded more like ice rather than the boiling hell she had inside.  
The woman merely answered with a small nod of her head, eyes already averted.

_As always._

When nothing more came from her side, Selwyn decided to break the uneasiness of that silence.  
“I’m glad you made it for supper. I had a bath prepared for you in your room.”

“It would be nice, thank you.” She said politely, before leaving.

Alyda glanced at her quickly while she climbed the stairs, her right hand on her precious sword’s hilt, until her golden form disappeared in the dark.


	2. Blue Eyes, Cold Eyes

Can’t you just wait?”  
Her grandfather chided.  
Alyda lifted her eyes from her plate to look at him, a chunck of venison still in her mouth.

“What should I wait for?” She grumbled.  
That granted her one of his harsh looks.

“Do not play these childish games with me. Put your fork down and wait. Don’t make me tell you twice.”

“Ah.” She scoffed, before dropping soundly the cutlery on her plate. “And will you spank her, since she is the one being late for supper? Not that I care, at least until it forces me to not dine.”

“...Lyd.” He hissed. “Stop it.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Then shut your mouth, or you’re going back to your rooms without another crumb.”

_As if you could really stop me._  
In the end she relented with a loud sigh.  
She hated this. She hated it all. Every time.

When the sounds of footsteps reverberated toward the hall, Alyda watched with the corner of her eye her mother’s shadow coming down the stairs.

_Without that hateful armor she has almost the shape of a woman_, she noticed.

Her dark blue robe touched her feet, while her slender hand remained wrapped around the hilt of her sword.

_The damn sword._

Always attached to her side, like a frightened child.  
She always clutched at it as if it was the best thing she had in her life, the only thing she truly held dear, more than anything else. 

_Likely even more than me._

She watched her walking towards the table, sitting in front of her grandfather with a small courtesy smile.

Alyda was used to play a little game.  
She kept staring at her, barely blinking, curious to see if sooner or later the woman would give in, feeling forced to look back at her. 

_You’ll have to look at my face sooner or later. _  
_You can’t avoid me forever._

And yet she did. Every time.  
Initially Alyda thought that, by ignoring her in turn, she might have given her some form of displeasure.  
Over time, she realized that her own silence and absence had likely been more a relief to her mother rather than a punishment.

“Aren’t you famished anymore?” - Her grandfather suddenly murmured - “What are you waiting for, now?”

She directed her coldest stare to the woman on the other side of the table. “I was waiting for the Lord Commander of the cripple’s Guard to tell us something interesting about her job. I imagine there has been a lot to do considering that almost ten months have passed since the last time she graced us with her presence.”

Alyda saw her mother’s expression change, and she could notice irritation raising behind her imperturbable facade.

_Look at me._

  
And finally she did, haunting blue eyes staring into green, coldness staring into anger.

“Are you finished?” She cutted, barely opening her mouth. Her glare, though, was far more eloquent.

“It depends. Will you dignify me with an answer?”

Despite her best efforts, she was failing to mantain the gelidity she was hoping to convey.  
Her breath was quickening, her heart was threatening to burst out from her chest. She wondered if the spiteful smile she had put on her face was anywhere near to her goal.

“Lyd...” Her grandfather squeezed her forearm, his voice more worried than angry. “Enough now.”

_No, it will never be enough._

“Come on, I’m listening. Have you something to say?” - she pushed her, instead - “Or even you are ashamed to tell us that the best obligation you had to stay away almost a year was to push the wheelchair of your king?”

A sudden silence fell upon them and the hall.

She had crossed the line, she knew, yet she didn’t care, not anymore. Alyda knew that once the dam broke, there was no way to stop a flooding river. Too long she had held back the words, and her pain along with them, yet, somehow, nothing she had planned to tell could match the cruelty of what had actually come out from her mouth in that moment.

The woman straightened her back, her hand firmly gripping her fork. “I will dignify you with the only answer you deserve.”

“Let me guess, is it silence?” Alyda said with a malicious grin.

Her mother stared at her for a long moment, eyes glistening, unblinking. The only sign of her distress, if there was any, was the marked furrow between her brows.

“The only thing I’m ashamed of, right now, is you.”

Alyda felt her whole being crumbling into pieces.  
She pushed roughly her chair back, and quickly stood up.

She wanted to scream, hurt her somehow, yet a sudden total sense of exhaustion took over her.

“Then you should have spent the last sixteen years teaching me how to be better than what I’ve become.”

Her own voice sounded so little and broken that she could barely recognise it.

  
Her grandfather used to say that she was strong like a lioness, born in winter, sturdy like a rock, yet now she was feeling tiny, weak and repulsive as a rat.

She did her best not to meet anyone’s gaze as she left, running to take refuge in her womb of bitterness, anger and shame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Review if it pleases you


	3. Battling The Water

The following days passed slowly and merciless like a small knife cutting through the softness of a belly.

Alyda and the Lord Commander had not looked nor spoken at each other since the evening of her arrival, but after all, there was not much difference from normality of their encounters.

Alyda found herself lying on her bed earlier than necessary once again. Her mind was a whirl of thoughts fueled by anger and bitterness, her eyes kept staring aimlessly at the ceiling.  
She often found herself spending hours in that way, retracing the sequence of words she heard, of words she had spoken, of those she wished she had said and of those left unsaid, if not with eloquent gestures.  
The last ones were the worst, for her mind seemed to enjoy filling those empty spaces with the most hateful words and the most deleterious sentences.  
Alyda repeated to herself how those had never come out of anyone’s mouth, despite the circumstances made them seem almost real.

Almost audible.

She didn’t know how much time she spent like that this time, sprawled on her bed, but when she glanced outside, the sky seemed to be heading towards sunset.  
She had just resigned herself to the prospect of a sweet slumber until supper, when suddenly a sound of clashing swords attracted her attention.

Curious, Alyda walked to the window overlooking the courtyard, where a couple of young squires were sparring.

And there she was.

The woman had still no armor on, and judging by the ability of those two boys, she definetly had no need of it. Alyda heard her mother scolding one of them for the poor footwork he was demonstrating, while the other seemed too clumsy and voracious with his attacks.  
She observed the three of them fighting for few minutes, until the ardor in her blood became unbearable.

Without thinking twice, she clasped the scabbard of one of her swords and rushed out from her room, then run down the stairs and towards the entrance of the courtyard.

Alyda gave them the time to acknowledge her presence before approaching the small group.  
  
“That was a pitiful spectacle.” She taunted, walking with long and resolute steps. “Maybe you want to spar with someone a little more decent?”

The two squires were looking at her without the attempt at hiding their annoyance, but her mother’s expression was unreadable.

_Ah, are you not leaving yet? Good._

She unsheated her sword and directed its blade at the woman, while her solemn blue eyes darted from the weapon to Alyda’s provoking smile.  
“Come on. Don’t be afraid.”

She honestly couldn’t remember the last time they did it, but she remembered being still very young when it happened.

_And still left handed with the sword._

‘_She needs to learn how to fight with both hands_.’ Mother had told to the master of arms, at some point.

Since then, Alyda had fought and practiced solely with the other boys and several weapon masters.

Curious how she was seemengly considering to accept her invitation, now, but the woman finally raised her sparring sword, eyes cautious.

And then the dance begun.

After their blades clashed the first time, Alyda grew soon impatient with her well placed blows, ending up chastised by the patience of her opponent.  
The woman hit her arse with the plate of her sword, eliciting the laughter of the two squires watching.

Alyda’s teeth clenched with grudge, while the look she gave them was filled with a cold, contained wrath.  
They didn’t seem to care, though, for their smiles remained well fixed on their lousy faces.  
She glanced at her mother then, whose attitude felt far too much pleased with her daughter’s humiliation.

_Very well, then._

The woman repositioned herself, this time mantaining a side guard. The moment she did so, Alyda charged and surprised her with a flunge directed to the head, ending up hitting her temple with the plate of the sword.

“You’re dead.” She grinned, smug.  
Her opponent, though, was red with furious bewilderment.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“I didn’t imagine you wanted me to go easy on you, Lord Commander.” Alyda scorned.

“Do you realise how dangerous was what you’ve done? We have no helmets!” Her mother hissed. “Had I moved in the wrong way you could have cut me in the face.”

A malicious grin stretched Alyda’s face.  
“Who knows, it might improve.”

The woman glared at her.  
A thousand arrows would have been less threatening.

Again?” Alyda asked with a careless smile, weapon lifted, but her mother sheathed the sword and then tried to go past her with quick strades.

Alyda didn’t let her.

“No.” She countered, standing before her mother with defiance. “We haven’t finished.”

“Move.” The woman ordered, stiff.

“I said no!” This time, Alyda raised the sword to block her. “If you want to leave, you’ll have to fight me first!”

She was pushing her fortune in a way she had never done before, and Alyda could tell that even her mother looked almost surprised, behind her well contained anger.

_I’m sick and tired of being ignored. I won’t keep living in the shadows for the rest of our lives._

“I won’t tell you again...” - the woman said again - “Move aside.”

She didn’t.

When her mother tried to push her away by the shoulder, Alyda clasped vigorously her wirst and shoved her back with force. The woman staggered for a second, her eyes wide and visibly shocked.

Alyda, for her part, was feeling like a mere spectator of her own actions, aware and frightened of what was happening, and yet estranged from her own body at the same time.

Unable to stop.

There was some movement around them, people who likely didn’t know whether to call for help or to stay and watch the situation crumble.

Alyda had expected to see the woman go on a rampage, to slap her, to call her names.

Nothing.

She stood there with inquisitive eyes, seemingly more curious than anything else.

_Why aren’t you angry? Why don’t you care?_

Then, suddenly, something changed, and those blue eyes of hers became almost sad.

_No, not sadness. Pity. That’s what it is._

She’d have preferred a violent response rather than pity, that at least was something she could have managed. In the end, her mother slowly drew the sword, the same, pained expression on her homely face.

Without a further thought, Alyda went to attack her wielding the sword with both hands, nothing held back. When the blades clashed, she saw her opponent bending slightly under the force of the blow.  
She kept attacking with unrelenting fury, charging every blow with more strenght than the one before, but the woman didn’t even try to fight back.

After what could have been the twentieth blow, Alyda striked one last time before seeing the other sword falling to the ground, her own breath laboured, and small, salty droplets crawling down her face.

“You won.”  
The woman said then, the commiserating look, which threatened to drive her insane, still in place.

This time, when her mother tried to walk away, Alyda didn’t stop her.

“Won?!”  
She shouted at her, as she watched her leaving.

People were staring at her.  
The mocking smiles on the squires’ faces were gone, replaced instead by the very same expression her mother had few moments ago. She noticed how most of the people around her, in truth, had now that look.

_Worry._

_Commiseration._

_Shame._

Alyda wished she was ruthless enough to smash away that haughtiness from their faces, wished to be pathetic enough to use her position to punish them out of spite.

And what a victory that would be.

_‘You won’,_ she says. The same condescension reserved to deluded people and stupid children.

The more she thought about what had happened, the more she tried to imagine how things could have ended, had she acted differently.

Alyda discovered that in none of those possible outcomes she would have felt like a winner, not really at least.

There must be a good amount of madness and naivety in someone who believes he can hurt water with fists and call himself a victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, review or comment if it pleases you! :)


	4. The Blind Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selwyn POV

The turmoil didn’t go unnoticed.

It was likely that the whole isle knew about the poor spectacle that his granddaughter had performed in the courtyard, by now. And Brienne along with her.

_As if they hadn’t enough to talk about, already._

Selwyn sighed in defeat while he watched Alyda’s empty seat at their dinner table, then he observed his daughter eating almost untroubled.

He knew her better than that.

“Brienne..” He said, waiting for her to rise her eyes from her plate. “How long will we have to do this?”

She glanced quickly at him, then lowered her gaze again. “As long as we have to. It’s not my choice, you know that.”

“I really doubt someone doesn’t know already at this point. Rumors spread, sooner or later, whether they’re true or not. We’re on an island, though, I don’t think it would harm anyone if you two got... a bit closer.”

“I can assure you...” - she interrupted - “...no one knows. And no one will as long as she remains here.”

“Oh you can’t really expect her to remain on this isle all her life.” - Selwyn scoffed. - “You know her little, but still enough to understand the way she is. This place is as small for her as it was for you, and whether you like to think about it or not, soon it will be also emptier.”

She shook her head in frustration and worry, but he did’nt relent.

“We have to talk about this. I won’t live forever. Who else does she have beside me if not you?”

“I - I can’t take her with me.” - Brienne stammered - “She can’t remain in the capital or anywhere close to it. Nor me. I’m the Commander of the King’s guard.”

“And you’ve been her mother before that.”  
He spat, despite her growing distress.  
“You kept her. You chose to keep her.”

“I did.” She conceded, her neck and face reddening with blood and a good amount of shame.

“Good. Then bring her with you when you go.   
She’ll leave sooner or later anyway. It’s better if you know where she is rather than knowing her lost somewhere in Westeros or beyond.   
You’ll keep an eye on her.”

“I can’t...”

Selwyn clasped her hand vigorously.  
“People there do not need to know that she’s yours.” He whispered, cautious.

“They’ll understand soon enough when they see her... - Brienne argued promptly - expecially if she’s with me.”

“No one remembers her father after all these years!” He hissed, scoffing. “King’s Landing has been covered by the ashes of those who might have known his face when he was alive.   
All the others must have forgotten by now.”

“Not everyone has forgotten.”  
He heard her voice tremble.

_After all this time, it still pains you so._

He had known her sentiments towards the man had been enormous the moment she decided to keep his child, despite her sorrow. Despite her vows.

_And yet..._

“Ah, I see.” He murmured, lifting his chin.   
“Are other people those who don’t have to see her, or are you the one who doesn’t want to look at her face every day?”

She eyed him with eyes full of grief and bewilderment.  
“How many times do we have to discuss this?”  
The anguish in her voice was plain as day.

“We shall talk about it as long as I’ll be the one taking care of your daughter, and until you say to me what I should keep telling her.   
I don’t have many stories left to feed her with, and she no longer believes those she already heard.   
I have been telling something new each time to convince her that she was wrong, that despite your duty and absence you care about her!”

“Of course I care!”   
She retorted in distress, her lids closed shut.

“How can I continue to use sweet words to tell her that your duty is more important than raising a daughter? Tell me, please?”  
Silent tears were falling along her cheeks, but her blue eyes were still averted.

In that moment she reminded him of the small, insecure child she had been many years ago.

“It’s easier when you don’t have to see it all the time, you know?” - He insisted, more softly - “But I’m here every day, having to handle her rage and her frustration. And how can I blame her behaviour?   
She’s sixteen and she’s already full of anger, hatred...”

“Then let her.” She interrupted, still not looking at him.

“... What?” Selwyn asked in confusion.

“Let her hate me...” She murmured, her voice broken.  
“As long as she remains here, where she’s safe.”

“Aye, safe, and far from your sight.”

He watched her shaking her head slowly, but nothing could persuade him to think otherwise.

_You want to know that she exists, you want to know her safe, as long as she stays away from you. _   
_All because you can’t even bear to look at her._

“How can hatred be any good?”   
He said after a while.

“It’s good because she won’t miss me.”   
This time she was facing him, with a resolve that didn’t allow further objection. Finally, she cleaned her cheeks with a sleeve and then rose on her feet.

“I’ll be in my room if you have any need of me.”

Selwyn watched her while she was leaving, wearily dragging one foot after the other as if she had just faced the most impervious road of her whole life.

“I’m not the one in need of you.”

He heard her steps faltering for a split second before they resumed their climb.

What’s worth a life spent in safety when it’s lived in isolation and wrath, he wondered.

Did his daughter wish she could hate the man she’s lost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Review if you like :)


	5. The Death of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Review if it pleases you

Brienne found herself at her daughter’s door without really being sure of what to say.

It was a lost battle, she knew that, but she herself was to blame for it too.  
She breathed in and then knocked twice.

“Who is it?” Alyda’s muffled voice came sharp like a knife from the other side.

_If she can sound so sullen now, I wonder what she’ll be like in few seconds._

“It’s me...” Brienne sighed.

She waited for few moments, but no answer came.

“...May I come in?”

Still nothing.

She slowly pushed the door open and found her sitting at the desk, back turned.  
Brienne waited for some reaction, but when none came, she decided to speak first.

“I’m leaving in the morning.”  
The girl rose her head, but didn’t turn.

“Good.” Alyda's voice cut like a blade. “Did you come here for a kiss?”

She breathed deeply, now fearing her own words as much as the girl’s.

“I just came here to say goodbye.”

Alyda turned to face her, eyes ureadable and as cold as winter. The girl had always been an indecipherable conundrum for someone with her own wits, or at least that had always been the explanation Brienne gave herself.

“Since when?”  
Alyda asked, unblinking.

“You weren’t going to come... you never did. So here I am.” She said softly.

Those green eyes never left hers. She hated that predatory stare, the one Alyda put on her own face whenever Brienne tried to talk to her. Her daughter seemed far too much aware of her distress, at least enough to make sure to put it on each time their gaze met.

“You didn’t come the other times though." - The girl retorted - "What’s different now?”

Brienne had to lower her eyes. “I used to think that you’d rather not to see me...” 

_I made sure of it myself, didn't I?_

Alyda's face was the one of a statue. “And now you’re assuming otherwise.” She said, her voice so cold it sounded like death.  
It was painful to realise the amount of hatred she had been gathering for all these years.

_But that’s what I wanted, after all, didn’t I?_

It had to be easier this way, at least for the girl. Or so she thought.

_You cannot miss those you hate, don’t you? You only miss the ones you love the most._

Still, for Brienne, it wasn’t something simple to bear, especially when she saw it on that very face, with eyes so similiar to those that once held only love and tenderness for her. Every time, it felt like a knife was being twisted in her chest, to the point she had to avoid looking at the girl to spare herself some pain.

_Would he look at me in the same way she does, if he knew what I had to do to her?_

Brienne closed her eyes, trying to picture soft, emerald gems staring at her with love and admiration. And failed.

“You were upset about my prolongued absence.” Brienne finally said. “I didn’t really think it made much of a difference to you at this point.”

The girl breathed in sharply, then abruptly stood up. Had Brienne been a smaller woman, she would have almost felt in danger.

“What do you even come here for? The shores? The waterfalls? Grandfather?” Alyda said, walking, until she finally stood in front of her, merely a couple of inches lower.  
“I realise how I’m the inconvenience in all of this, but I don’t need your pity, nor your presence.”

Brienne looked at her straight in the eye.  
“What you did and said in these past days told me otherwise.”

The girl’s stare filled with outrage at such assumption, but Brienne kept watching her pensively, trying to gather the words she had finally decided to say.

“I’ll come back soon...” Brienne tried to soothe her.

Alyda squinted her eyes, yet her scowl didn’t leave.  
“You won’t... why should you? Your place isn’t here, it’s with your cripple king!” She spat.

Brienne loathed the way she said that word.

Cripple.

She knew Alyda’s idea of a king was very different from what people had now.

Strength, bravery and capability were the things the girl valued, but the only thing her daughter saw in Bran the Broken was weakness and unworthiness. And yet, to her displeasure, such a weakling had the power to keep her own mother away.

Little the girl knew of how the king’s real power didn’t rely on a sword, nor an army, but on knowledge.

Knowledge of what has been and of what is, maybe even of what it would have been. _And he knows about her too._

Why he had wanted her at all costs in the King’s guard remained a mistery to Brienne, just like most of the things the king used to say. Whatever the case, he had known how to get what he wanted.

Jaime had wondered many times why the boy had not told about the events of his crippling, but shortly after, Brienne had found out.

_A secret in exchange for another secret. A life for another’s life._

And she had sworn herself to the Starks, years before that, when she thought she could have nothing else in her future.  
And then, no way out.

_Barristan Selmy had a way out, and Jaime had one too. I might find one too._

“I promise.” Brienne said with resolve. "I'm coming back soon."

Her daughter shook her head, while a smile made of thorns appeared on her squared, comely face. “You promise..." - she scoffed - "as if it had some meaning to me.”

Alyda turned away and went to her window, now seemengly more interested in the blue waters of the sea at dusk rather than her mother’s words.

“You think your presence at this point might still have some sort of relevance, and it's utterly disconcerting to me.”- She clasped the windowsill with her hands.- “If there’s ever been a time when I thought I might have some need of you, I’ve soon after discovered I could do things without anyway. I was forced to, you weren't there." She grumbled through gritted teeth.  
"But you know what? I’ve made it this far without you, and now I mean to go all the way, without you.”

After those harsh words, the girl went silent.

Brienne wondered if she was giving her the chance to retort, to explain, to say that she was sorry.  
There was nothing she could tell to make things look better, nor sound sweeter, but then her daughter decided to fill silence with her own words.

“I’ve tried to cut you many times, you know..." - She muttered, shaking her head - "That was until I realised I could not draw blood from a corpse.” Alyda turned slightly, enough to look at her with a single eye.

Brienne felt the knot that have been threatening to strangle her, becoming even tighter.

_That’s what you wanted, remember?_

But she had never wanted to give her such pain.

“I...” Brienne tried, before her own voice failed her. “I’m so... so sorry... I really am...”  
It was barely a whisper.

She saw the girl’s scowl deepening, her eyes wide open, though they now showed something more akin to offence rather than surprise.

“Now?” Alyda hissed. “Now you’re sorry?”  
The girl rushed towards her with three long strides.  
“You weren’t sorry a year ago, nor the other fourteen years before that. And now you are. What should I do with it?” She growled.

_Because I never realised the amount of misery this stranger was giving you. Not this way. Not until few days ago._

Brienne knew she should have forgotten about her daughter the day she came into this world.  
Yet she didn’t. She couldn’t.

Brienne had always thought she was making more a selfish favour to herself every time she came back home, needing to see her face. _His face._

Seeing her was like seeing him again, in a sense, or rather what was left of him. 

_I’ve always thought it would have been a blessing rather than a gentle torture._

Instead, it was constant reminder of all the things she couldn’t have, all the things she had lost, every time there, in front of her, cruelly at hand. A sweet sorrow she craved and feared, one being both relief and utter agony.

Brienne often wondered if she would have felt the same if Alyda had looked more like her, rather than him.

The thought was a terrible one.  
Yet, when Brienne saw, in the yard, those eyes filled with both pain and resolve, she was reminded of the last time she saw him, unshed tears battling against a cracking wall of indifference.

That time she had failed to convince him that he was better than what he saw.  
She had respected his decision, and he had died because of it.

_Maybe he had been too far gone, but this impudent, brusque, surly girl is not. _  
_And I won’t make the same mistake twice._

Brienne took one of Alyda’s hands without really thinking on the act, much to the girl’s surprise. On her part, Brienne was astonished when Alyda didn’t try to snatch it away from her unsure, gentle grip.

“I’ve made many, many things in the wrong way, so many mistakes, I know...” - she said, her voice trembling like a maiden’s - “You....you may think the worst of me, and you have any right to do so, but please tell me if I ever did something for you to doubt my word.”

When Brienne was finally able to meet the girl’s eye, she found confusion and suspicion, yet her expression had undoubtedly, surprisingly softened.

_I shouldn’t be doing this... he could be hearing, he could be seeing. Devotion is what keeps her safe._

Unwilling, Brienne left her daughter’s hand.  
“I’ll be back soon. I swear it.”  
Then feeling her own composure on the verge of crumbling, she turned on her heels and walked away.

All the words she had meant to say, all the things she had craved to tell her, remained once again treasured whereas no one, not even her king could hear, and yet, along with him, not even the one whom needed to hear them the most.

_One day..._ \- she told herself- _...one day I’ll be able to tell her everything. One day I’ll be allowed to love her freely._

But that day had yet to come.


	6. Not What It Takes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy and review!

_A ship comes, a ship goes._

And just like she wasn’t there when it came, she wouldn’t be there when it left.

Alyda observed the mole being crowed once again for their golden knight, likely feeling nothing but pride for the woman who represented their island in the capital.

_They smile and praise her to her face. _ _T_ _hey might as well laugh at her and call her a whore behind her back._

On her part, Alyda doubted of having ever brought some kind of pride to anyone, and people never faked smiles or whispered kind words to convince her otherwise. She had tried though, yet failed every time.   
She had likely been her family’s shame since the moment they knew she existed, and stood to that status ever since.

A bastard was not an easy stain to erase from a family name, although no one ever stated it publicly.

Just a foreign child with no family, people had to believe, brought up and educated since the early years to become a worthy lady of the isle, after the rightful one forsake her title, one who could grow loving its people and embracing their customs, one who was tied to that rock as if she had been born there.   
But she was born there.   
She didn’t love that rock, nor its people, nor the way they spoke or look at her, as if she had no right to be who she was.   
To someone she was just an illegitimate daughter of lord Selwyn, birthed by one of the many whores who had been in the Hall over the years.

_‘Too pretty for a Tarth_’, some other said, though.

_‘Too blonde, tall and burly for not being one’_, others stated.

But for some, the truth changed according to what they wanted to see, and what most preferred to claim was that such an unbearable, snooty girl had no right over the island and its people.

_Envy,_ she used to tell herself in the beginning, until she couldn’t believe it anymore.   
How convenient it was that, among all the lords and ladies of Evenfall Hall people could chose to envy, they had decided to pick on her.

_What an unfortunate soul._

Despite all of that, Alyda knew she should have been grateful for having a castle as a home, food at her table, dresses and privileges that most could only dream of.

Except that she wasn’t.

Each time she had to face her mother, Alyda wished the woman had thrown her to the waters rather than leave her to that world.

_I imagine drawning could have been be a gentle death, after all, well suited for a still innocent child. _   
_I must be better suited for flames, by now._

After all, her mother’s coldness had burnt her like fire.

She had hated her for it, and somehow had craved her love at the same time, despite everything.   
Yet, that had made Alyda hate herself even more.

After having lost her affection over the years, she had been determined to get at least her attention, no matter the cost of it.

And maybe, at some point, an explanation.

_Maybe in an other ten months. Maybe ten years. _   
_Or maybe never._

She couldn’t help but think about it everytime the royal ship left their shores.

_ 'I'll be back soon.' mother said. 'I promise.'_

Somehow she could almost believe it.  
Hope could be somewhat a salvation if only wasn’t devastating beyond reason.

When suddenly the door opened behind her without any knock, Alyda closed her eyes in anticipation.

“You’ve been awful.” her grandfather thundered. “But I assume you know that better than me.”

“Awful?” she asked, calm. “How?”

“How?” He said before turning her with a vigor that should not belong to a man in his conditions.   
“You do realise your mother just left, don’t you?”

_Yes, she just left me. Again._

“I’m sorry. Should I cry?” She smiled coldly.

“Lyd...” He warned. “I don’t even know what to do with you at this point. You’re a woman, and you act like a child. I understand your rage, I really do, but...”

“No. No you don’t...” She tried to interrupt, but he didn’t allow her to.

“Your attitude is shameful!” He said, almost shouting. “It always is! Time, after time, after time! What do you expect for that in return?”

Alyda snickered in amazement.   
“Mine, isn’t it? My attitude is shameful...” She felt her grin morphing into a grimace. “They love her, they admire her because they never knew about whom she left behind all of that glory. I imagined you had at least the decency to recall that small detail, but I was wrong.”

The man sighed, and sat on the edge of her bed, brushing his face with his big, old hand.

_He has no more the strenght for this_, Alyda thought, grimly. It often gave her the chance to strike him hard, but she ended up regretting it every time.

She only wished he’d cease his strenuous defense of her mother’s selfish choices.  
She only wished they didn’t dismiss her pain as something easy to endure. As something managable.

_Why am I not allowed to feel this way? _   
_Why am I the one in the wrong all the time?_

“I... I need to go.” Alyda grumbled, clasping one of her swords’ sheath.

“Beating some guy up won’t help the situation.”  
Her grandfather chided after her.

“It will. It always does, trust me.”

This time, he didn’t try to stop her.   
She was aware her grandfather was beginning to give up on her, and it was likely for the best.

_He doesn’t deserve to handle me until the end of his days. He did it until now only because he had to. Otherwise..._

Alyda walked quckly past him and pushed the door open. The run down the stairs and through the Hall wasn’t fast enough for her to avoid the supercilious looks of servants and handmaids.

Always around to hear and see their daily, stupid arguments, always judging, snickering and tattling over whatever they had no right to meddle about.  
She already caught some of them while they thought she couldn’t hear their voices.

_‘Spoiled, ungrateful, arrogant brat.’_

_‘Misfortune.’_

_‘The disgrace of this house.’_

_‘A slap on her mouth, that’s what she needs.’_

_‘Poor Selwyn, the Gods had been laughing at his expense all his life.’_

Each time, all it took for them to stop was one of her sharp, ominous looks. Yet, even now, she was sure about what they were thinking without the need of hearing it straight from their mouths.  
Alyda feigned indifference over their stares as she left, but the road to the courtyard seemed far longer than usual. It was a fortune that, at least there, there would be someone else to laugh about.

_It’s easy to feel less pathetic than all these losers pretending to be knights._

Her eyes roamed over the yard until they found Gerold, the master of arms.  
He was giving instruction to a couple of young men, one of whom she had already beaten properly in front of a discreet public. Many had laughed at him, she remembered, yet no one had praised her.

_Not even Gerold._

In truth, the better she became with a sword, the more his appreciations seemed to diminish.  
She often wondered how he could prefer the poor results of those incompetents rather than those obtained with her talents.  
Alyda used to think that all it took was being the best, and yet there they were, together. Talking. Smiling. Joking. Laughing. Always without her.  
Everything faded away when the group noticed her from afar.The happiness, the fun, the voices. All gone.

She saw them exchanging few final words, before parting ways. The place soon remained desert, if not for the sturdy figure of Gerold, who was still standing tall in the middle of the courtyard.

Alyda waited there for a while, watching the man tidying up some weapons and several pieces of armor. Once he couldn’t ignore her distant presence anymore, he lifted his head and looked at her.  
She hoped for a smile, then, for an invitation, or even a simple nod. None came.   
After a moment, Gerold simply resumed his tasks, choosing to give her is back.

A familiar bitterness took over her.  
_What does it take?_

Alyda realised she had been clenching her fists only when the nails begun digging the flesh of her hands.

It didn’t hurt.   
It was almost soothing, like the sound of water.  
It reminded her of one of the first things Gerold had told her a long time ago.

_‘When pain is seemingly unberable, you can soothe it by choosing to feel it somewhere else. Sometimes all it takes is a sharp sting on your hand, and it will distract your mind from the other.’_

It worked well enough before, especially when the hurt had been something less physical than what Gerold had meant to tell her.

_‘A short, yet intense pain, can easily overtake one somewhat smaller, although far more consuming. That’s how mind works.’_

And so, she pushed her claws even further in her palm, while she allowed her legs to carry her towards the sea.


	7. The Weaponiser

Gerold observed his youngest pupils with fondness as he walked the yard’s perimeter. All children between seven to twelve years, playing at war in front of him, although there was a tangible feeling of serenity in knowing that nothing of the sort was about to come.

He was there to see the horrors of King’s Landing burning, almost eighteen years ago._ Fire._  
Fire in his eyes, fire on his skin, fire in his lungs.   
A whole army was turned into ashes in front of his very eyes that day. All of them were his companions.

It was then that Gerold had wished he never took a sword in his hand to begin with.   
After the war left him with heavy burns, a severly injured leg and scarce chances of survival, he had opted for retirement and peace.   
No one cared to notice a single man with no family missing from the Lannisters’ army, and even if they did, his name went probably among those deemed dead.   
And he was, in a sense.

He had given and seen enough for one life.

Islands were pretty forgiving for those in search of a new beginning and a new name, and Gerold had found both of them in Tarth. He never hoped to become something more than a farmer on that isle and, in truth, it was plenty enough for him.

It was only by chance, or rather by Lord Tarth’s desperation, that he became master of arms.

Gerold was convinced that, at the time, the man would’ve accepted anyone good enough with a sword who might be willing to teach to his ‘elect’ how to fight properly.

He had soon understood the Lord’s anguish.

It took the form of a young, belligerent girl who, thanks to her untamable attitude, had been able to scare away at least three exasperated masters of arms before him.

Gerold had survived dragonfire, though.   
He was sure an impertinent lass couldn’t possibly be worse than the stench and view of burning flesh.

Military discipline had come in handy, at least when it came to manage her fiery temperament and, over time, to win her respect.   
It was an achievement he didn’t hope to get.

Gerold discovered she was exceptionally good with a sword, even more with two. Lady Brienne made sure the girl could handle a sword with her right hand as well as she did with her left. He was told the woman had tried to take care of the matter herself before, until the rumors became too insistent to remain unheard.

Gerold himself has been well aware of the fondness in the Lady’s eyes every time they laid on the girl, yet he had known how to remain in his place.

_Maybe a little too much._

An other military heritage.   
Don’t ask.   
Follow orders.  
Do what you’re told to.  
Don’t mind the consequences. They’re not your fault.

Gerold was told to train the future Evenstar of Tarth, and so he did.

Now he could see the consequences.

He had seen the girl’s attitude change over the years, and although she had never been someone easy to deal with before, time and sword fighting had considerably worsened her.

She seemed to take pride and satisfaction in the humiliation of her opponents, charging them with furious, unforgiving attacks which could easily become dangerous for their wellbeing. It had reached the point where no one with half a brain wanted to fight with her anymore, and in a short time, not even talk to her. Gerold had often scolded her on the matter, but the young lady had promptly downplayed it.

_‘It’s not my fault if they can’t even hold a sword.’_ \- she had told him - _‘A real opponent, out there, would have no mercy for the likes of them.’_

He couldn’t say she was wrong.   
Yet none of those boys would end up in an army or fighting mercenaries and cutthroats.   
Truth be told, under the kingdom of Bran the Broken, there seemed to be no enemies at all.

It was sad to see how this girl was instead at war with the whole world.  
Any interaction with her was filled with tension and uneasiness, any reproach was met with spite and arrogance. People could hardly stand her, and even those among the lowly ones often made no effort to hide their contempt.   
Gerold could almost feel sorry for her in those occasions, although he was quick to remind himself how the girl was the first responsible for all that hatred.

One thing he had to concede, however, was that she never used her position as a lady to retaliate against those who offended her. He had known enough kings, queens, lords and ladies to know that such thing was rather uncommon, especially in a young woman.  
But Gerold knew Alyda was interested in challenges, and there was none in the kind of punishments a lady could inflict on a poor bastard.

_And yet, even with a mere sword, there are no equal terms when you’re fighting against someone that much reckless and inconsiderate._

She made him often think about something his father used to say when Gerold was a green boy.   
_‘Heroes and criminals are cut from the same cloth.Lacking in fear and bold in their doing, always ready to act whereas many would not dare to move a finger. _  
_What actions they will choose to carry on in their audacity, however, will only be determined by their upbringing.’_

Or by their circumstances.

_And now I fear all of my teachings may be instruments in the wrong hands._

At first, he used to have the presumption they could help her to grow up and improve her behaviour.  
In hindsight, Gerold wished he never led the young lady to become what she was now.   
Maybe she’d have been glad for it too, and he would have lived better knowing that what she was doing with a sword wasn’t mostly his fault.

_I’ve seen enough people turning into monsters because of the weapon they wielded in their hand. _


	8. Ruthless Architect

"Your Grace.”

  
Brienne’s voice came as soon as Bran had expected. The woman bowed her head clutching at the sword, one of the two precious gift left to her by the man who had crippled him. He knew what was about to come. He had known since the woman had come back to the capital seven months ago.

“I can’t allow you to go this time.” He said.

The next moment, the Commander’s face fell like crumbling stone. There was a time when he would’ve described it as pain.

“...Y-Your Grace,” - she began, distressed - “I... I thought....”

“I know what you thought. I know what you promised her.”

The moment he turned to watch her in the eye, her gaze fell on the ground, like a child’s caught lying.

_Embarassement._

“That’s... not.. ” - She wavered, trying to watch at him again - “... It was nothing of importance. I’ve seen her anguished and I just... I just told her -...”

“... What she needed to hear...” - He interrupted her - “...As it should be.”

The woman’s face was plagued by confusion and concern. But it was useless for her to be worried.

“Forgive me, your Grace. I know it’s not my place to do so, but may I ask you the reason behind your interdiction, then?” Her voice was now firm, maybe even lit by anger.  
  
“Because I need you to be here.” He simply said.

The Commander’s mouth hung slightly open for a few seconds. “I’m sorry to insist, your Grace, but I asked for your permission many months ago. There are no important issues involved with the Small Council, Ser Podrick can manage the rest while I’m not here...-”

“I’m sorry, Lady Brienne, but if I allowed you to go now, she would not be safe anymore. You have to remain here.”

The woman remained silent, but didn’t hide her gaze.

She watched at him for a long, very long time, until she decided to make a step further, her feet heavy.

“I can’t do this anymore...” She said in the end, her voice sounding dead rather than defeated.

He smiled at her.  
“Are you aware the King’s Guard vows are for life?”

“I am...”

_The things we do for love._

He knew she would kill for the young lioness.  
Even her own king.  
But this wasn’t her future, nor his.

Bran watched the fireplace, its sound now the only thing left to hear.

“How’s your injury, Lady Brienne?” He asked, after a while.

Her answer was not quick to come.  
“It’s... healing properly, your Grace...”

“You almost lost your fingers, the maester told me. Our new recruits are far better than what we thought. Few can claim to have hurt ser Brienne of the King's Guard”

“Ser Lauren was really mortified of what happened. I got distracted, it wasn’t his fault...” She sighed.

“Of course...” - Bran smiled - “I’ve feared for your effectiveness with the sword, but luckily nothing severe happened.”

“No... luckily not.”

Bran nodded before turning his attention to the flames once again. The woman seemed ready to turn on her heels and leave, but he decided to speak instead.  
It was almost the time, after all.

“As soon as your wound is completely healed, I’ll allow you to go to Tarth. Six months from now should be enough.” He said.

“I can travel already, your Grace...” She promptly retorted. “If your concerns are about...-”

“After that period...” - he interrupted her - “...you shall leave the King’s Guard, if you wish to do so.”

The Lady’s eyes became as big as the sun.

“I... I thought you...” - She began, but words failed her. “....Your Grace, are you... are you certain?”

He looked at her, a once dead woman coming to life again. “I am.”

Bran saw a small, feeble smile escaping her lips, until she managed to suppress it again.

“But... W-Why?” She asked.

“Does it really matter?” He answered, softly.

The lady shook her head slightly.  
“No...no your Grace... thank you.” She breathed.

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

The woman stood there for a few seconds like a wary deer before speaking again.

“I guess... we should provide for the appointment of a new Lord Commander, then?” Her voice trembled.

Bran glanced at her quickly.  
“It won’t be necessary.”

A frown appeared on the lady knight’s face. "It won't..?"

“Until your departure” - he continued - “I’d ask you secrecy on the matter. With anyone.  
Can I appeal to your honor, my lady?”

Her eyes became momentarily sad, but in the end, she nodded and added nothing else.

“Very well.” - he finally said - “I’d advise you to send a raven as quickly as possible to lord Tarth if you wish to warn him about your last hindrances. The seas are quite adverse these days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment/Review if it pleases you! :)


	9. Oathbreaker

Brienne observed the white piece of paper she had on the table, its surface waiting for words made of ink and bitterness.

The King’s interdiction had been as much heartbreakening as it had been unexpected.  
As Lord commander first, and soon after as a mother, Brienne had learnt how to put a believable mask on her face during those long, unforgiving years in the King’s Guard, one even Jaime would’ve been impressed of, though not fooled by.

But no one had known her better than him, after all.

Brienne thought she had achieved a decent mastery at hiding the hell she had inside, but everything had fallen along with the King’s words. Considering the premises of their recent conversation, the last thing she would have hoped was for him to let her go.  
Eventually, at least.

_What changed? _  
_Why now, all of a sudden?_

No matter how many question she had for the king, he would not answer them if not with other conundrums.

But he was right, after all. As long as she could go home, and even remain there, it wasn’t important for her to know.  
At this point, her daughter was the only thing that mattered, as it always was.

Brienne’s initial refusal of the King’s Guard’s leadership had been met by Bran’s veiled threats. Back then, she had realized that the existence and safety of Alyda came with a price.

Sometimes, in the worst moments, Brienne wished she hadn’t carried on with the pregnancy, for the only thing she ended up giving to her daughter and to herself was a life made of misery and intangible love. And yet, whenever Brienne saw her, she remembered why she had gone all the way.

Maybe she should have been less selfish.  
Maybe she should have thought first about the kind of life the girl would have, instead of her own, greedy heart.

Her eyes fell again on the white, untouched paper.  
_Six months. Six months and I’ll be free._

Brienne wished she could write those words instead.  
She wished she could give her daughter happiness again, to give her a name day untouched by disappointment, for once.  
Alyda’s gift rested there on the table, wrapped in golden silk. She had been determined to give her the truth along with it, at least as much as she was allowed to.

_But father will have to do it for me._

Brienne finally wetted the quill pen’s tip in the ink bottle, hope and sadness battling each other to fill the blank paper. Pain radiated through her right hand while she moved her wrist, a reminder of her foolish, unsuccesful attempt at freedom.

> _"Father, I’m sorry to inform you that the king has no plan to let me come back to Tarth too soon. My next ship won’t be at your shores sooner than six months. Therefore, I must entrust you with this gift for the future Evenstar’s name day, hoping she might forgive my absence in this special recurrence.”_

Brienne could picture Alyda’s reaction as if she was there in front of her. She wouldn’t cry, no, she was too proud.  
She would roar and spit venom instead, for having allowed herself to thrust her mother’s words, for daring to believe that this time things would’ve been different.

_But they will be. They will be._   
_I’ll spend the rest of my days earning your forgiveness and giving you back what I’ve been depriving you of during the last seveteen years._

A small smile forced its way on her lips despite her burning eyes. Maybe, one day, she’d be able to see her daughter’s true smile as well, a precious, beautiful thing that Brienne had not seen in many years. _One of the many marks Jaime has left on her face._

Brienne put the quill pen aside and folded the paper with all the care that her injured hand allowed, then stained its opening with blood-red wax. The royal crow left by the sealing stamp now was there, watching over its content.  
She wrapped her hand around the tiny bundle containing Alyda’s name day gift and tied it to the letter.

  
Brienne doubted that was the kind of gift her daughter wanted, but, hopefully, that was the gift she needed.

_When I go back, I’m giving her Oathkeeper._  
She decided.


	10. Name Day

_The seventeenth of these days._

  
Selwyn stared from his window while a shy sun came out from the sea. Magnificent colors were painting that day, but he was sure they would not be able to improve his granddaughter’s mood.

Brienne couldn’t made it this year either, though he sometimes wondered if it was her duty or her pain holding her back.

_No, she would endure it for Lyd’s sake. Brienne always did when she was allowed to._

The girl didn’t take it well this time, or, at least, she took it worse than usual.  
When he told her, Alyda’s face has been that of someone struck by an arrow in the chest.

He had wondered then what had been making her a little more hopeful this time, yet he was careful not to ask, knowing a storm would break out as a result.

Where she took such a bad temper remained one of the greatest queries to him, for even her mother wasn’t able to answer that question. Brienne had been willing to take the blame most of the times for the girl’s behaviour, but he was always quick to remind her that Alyda had been a brazier even in the cradle.

She had lion’s blood pumping in her veins, after all, yet Brienne had promptly dismissed his suggestion.  
She had told him that Lannisters could be cruel, cunning and daring, but despite the upbringing of Tywin Lannister, they had been far less fiery than her daughter was.

_‘She is the way she is’_ \- Brienne had said, then -_ ‘I simply worsened whatever was already there.’_

Too hard on herself, as his daughter has always been.

He was beginning to regret the things he said to her the last time, knowing of the scourging she was capable to inflict to herself.  
Her behaviour towards the girl had changed over the years, but every time Alyda's nameday came, Selwyn couldn’t avoid remembering the way Brienne held her the day she was born.

_The most precious and delicate treasure she could ever dream to have in her arms._

He had seen her smile through her tears, with the purest joy in her eyes, right when he thought nothing could give her the strength to do it again. She looked completely different from the empty, broken shell who had come home a few months before. Selwyn fell in love with that small, reddish, roaring mess of a child the moment he realised the mending she was able to give to his daughter’s broken heart.

A gift he couldn’t even dream of, especially the moment Brienne told him she was with child. Back then, he had not understood her resolve straightaway, even more because of the almost unbearable sadness overshadowing it. 

But months later, he could see it plain as day.

_A man._  
A man has been his daughter’s worst misery.  
A man has been his daughter’s greatest joy.

_And this girl, a reminder of both things._

As if he had just summoned her, Alyda appeared under his gaze.

From the balcony, he saw her walking with firm steps, likely coming back from the courtyard.

_We are early risers, I see._

He went down the stairs and through the Hall, hoping to meet her on the way, and so it was.  
Selwyn gave her a big smile, reaching out his hands towards her.

“You don’t want to do this.” - she muttered while he approached - “I’m sweaty and dirty like a rag.” Yet she allowed him to take her face in his hands and kiss her on the forehead.

  
“Don’t be silly, you know you’re my favorite rag.” He said before giving her another loud, popping kiss on the cheek.  
“Happy name day, grumpy.”

“Aye” - she scoffed - “and my name sucks this day as it did the others before.”

“That’s your mother’s fault, not mine.” He chuckled.

“No need to remind me.” She retorted with one among the best frowns of her repertory.

_Alyda._

  
He had been fairly disappointed when Brienne told him the name she chose for her daughter, hopeful as he was to hear instead one of his dead twins’. She didn’t want to be reminded of those she’s lost, he supposed, for her little girl was alive and breathing, nor place on her the burden of those who came before and bore the same name.

Many chose the names of kings, queens, sages, or simply loved ones for their children, people who had already been, who had made, lived and walked their own paths.

He called his firstborn after Galladon of Morne, the perfect knight, and yet Brienne had become the one.

_She will be herself_ \- he had decided, then - _and her name will remind me of her and her alone, as it should be. _  
_Maybe, one day, other people might want to give her name to their children instead, wishing they might become like her..._

Many things had changed since the day he had that wishful thought. 

“There’s a small surprise for you.” Selwyn finally told her while Alyda was busy cleaning her face from the dirt.

“And now it's going to be even smaller.” The girl retorted, almost playful.

He wasn’t expecting her to be so lighthearted, today. Perhaps she was telling the truth when she claimed that a sword and an opponent could do wonders with her mood.

“It might be in its shape...” Selwyn said handing to her the tiny package wrapped in golden silk.

She was visibly puzzled by it.  
Her eyes darted a couple of time from his face to the bundle, as if she was expecting some kind of trick.

When Alyda finally took it, she studied its form for a moment before deciding to open it. Once its content was in display on her hand, no reaction came.

“Your... your mother asked me to give it to you.” - he added, then - “She had it made shortly after the last time we saw her.”  
  
Alyda kept staring at it, now frowning.  
“What is this supposed to mean?”

_Everything._

“It’s a fine necklace...”

“A lion’s head holding a... black stone in its mouth?” She muttered.

“That’s not a simple black stone...” - Selwyn said, softly - “It’s a sapphire.”

She gave him her eyes this time.  
“A black one...”- the girl stated, while a strange, mistrustful grimace appeared on her face - “The Sapphire Isle isn’t floating on liquid coal, though.”

“You have always preferred black over blue ...- ” he shrugged.

“What is she trying to say with this?” Alyda interrupted him.

He watched her carefully.  
“It’s a rare thing, you know? And she wants you to have it... I don’t think you need more explanations than this.”

The girl didn’t seem too convinced about his statement, yet, somehow, the more she looked at the tiny jewel, the more he could see a poorly hidden appreciation on her part.

Alyda tried to leave with a sulking face but, as she walked away, he noticed her head bending sligtly forward and her pace becoming hesitant, as if she was paying a little too much attention to the necklace in her hand.

Selwyn was fairly surprised when she stopped not too far away and decided to turn towards him.

“Pretty thing the lion head, anyway.”  
She said before resuming her walk.

He couldn’t help but smile.


	11. Worthless

_The merchant._

  
Alyda had never set foot in his workshop, but the man’s reputation was crystal clear on the Isle.  
Not only a savant globetrotter, they said, but also a skilled and competent jewel maker. People even went as far as to claim that his gems could heal flesh and spirit.

She never believed it.

_‘Your own mind can hurt you as much as a knife, yet it can also heal you enough if well persuaded._’ - Gerold had once told her - _‘I’ve heard of people who claimed to have improved their health with useless waters and ointments, all simply because they were convinced those could actually heal them.’_

Maybe this merchant’s gems were useless too, but what Alyda was looking for, in there, wasn’t a remedy.  
  
She entered the workshop, and knocked on the door’s jamb to gain the merchant’s attention. It took mere few moments to the man before realising who was standing before him.

She gave him a charming smile. “Greetings to you.”

“My lady” - he said, standing up quickly - “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

_This pleasure. As if it really was._

Alyda swinged towards him with few steps.  
“I came here for a consult...” She said leaning her elbows on his desk. “I need some notion about a gem’s value.”

The man smiled widely.  
“Of course my lady... what kind of gem?”

“A sapphire, black in color.”

The man’s enthusiasm seemed to falter for a moment.  
“Oh, I see.”

Alyda watched him insistently in his hesitation.  
“May I see something too?” She snapped.

“Of course my lady...”   
The merchant fumbled to clear up his desk, then he invited her to sit with a small gesture. She'd have expected him to at least ask to see the sapphire with his own eyes but, for some reason, it didn't seem necessary for his judgement.

_Curious_.

“So?” She hurried.

He sighed loudly. “I don’t deal with this kind of gems, I must to say.”

Her eyes squinted. “Why?”

“They’re not among the... finest you can work with.”  
The merchant shrugged.

A small rush of blood ran through her neck.  
“What is this supposed to mean?”

The man turned towards a small cabinet and begun searching for something. When he finally found it, the merchant placed it on the table.

“A blue sapphire...” Alyda mumbled, observing its color playing with sunlight on the dull table.

“Aye” - The man nodded. - “And this is one among the most valuable. Do you wish to know why, my lady?”

_I highly doubt it._  
“Yes, please.” She answered, grimly.

He seemed rather pleased to have something to teach. “The value of a sapphire is estimated mainly by three factors, which are size, color and luster. The size and weight of this one, as you can see, are both fairly generous, though it’s not the most important feature.”

“Let me guess” - she sneered - “It’s the color instead.”

“Well, in the case you're referring to, it’s the major issue, yes.” - he nodded - “You see, a sapphire is mainly affected by the amount of impurities involved during its formation. In the case of a black one, there is the highest amount of impurities involved, and that’s what gives it such color...” 

_Oh..._

Alyda observed the beautiful, blue gem, and something akin to envy begun permeating her belly. 

“But... I thought...” she begun, before feeling her throat tightening - “... I mean, they’re not even rare, then..”

“Their value is not determined by their rarity, but rather by their beauty.The blue ones are not even of the rarest color, yet they’re the most valuable nontheless, in particular when their shade tends toward a dark violet. This is because the dark, yet vivid color, creates the best contrast with their luster, hence the best aesthetics. And this bring us to the main issue with a black one, which is indeed the brightness.” 

“But... why the blue one can shine despite its dark color while the black cannot?” She asked.

“A sapphire can be a darkish blue and yet shine beautifully because it’s also pure... or transparent, if you will. A black one is nothing of the sort. It's instead opaque and dull, for it’s so thick with impurities that they end up depriving it of any transparency. It absorbs all the light without giving anything back... but you see, my lady, there’s no real value in such gem when it doesn’t shimmer.”  
The merchant said with an apologetic smile.

For an instant, Alyda felt like she had just turned to stone.

_No value. And hence no beauty._

“They might be almost valueless" - The merchant faltered in embarassement, probably perceiving distress in her silence -"But they can be used for other purposes, you know?” 

“Surprise me...” Alyda croaked then, sullen.

“There are benefits against pain and anguish, for instance.” - He stated, clearing is voice - “We usually recommend them to overcome periods of grief, or to fight the fear of the dark -...”

“Ah, I see...” Alyda interrupted, grimacing. “Thank you for your illumination.” She then rose to her feet and turned to leave. 

“Y-You’re welcome my lady...” - the merchant said while he hurried to open the door in gallantry - “I hope to see you again soon.” 

_No... no you don’t._

“I sincerely doubt you will.” Alyda grumbled before leaving with long strides.

Oddly enough, the whole situation was paining her more than what it should have. She found herself wondering if her mother had been cheated, maybe led to believe she had gifted her only daughter with something beautiful and precious instead of a worthless stone. 

Then, suddenly, something far worse hit her mind.

_What if she knew all of this, instead? _   
_Did she give me this despite knowing...? _   
_Or maybe she did precisely because of it?_

Her legs brought her torment to the shore’s rocks, where the sea was chanting its melody. Alyda climbed on them and walked towards the the farthest reachable, then sat on its edge, allowing to the frothing waves to caress her feet. 

_‘It’s a rare thing, you know?’_  
Her grandfather’s voice echoed in her mind.

_Not so much, apparently._

Yet its almost inexistent value wasn’t the worst thing about it.

_‘It absorbs all the light without giving anything back.’_

A dull pain stung her in her chest, one she was used to, by now.  
Alyda pulled out the necklace from her pocket and observed it.

The lion’s head was as beautiful as she remembered, its open mouth holding the smooth, rounded black gem like a prey. 

_What is the purpose of combining such a precious and refined creation with a dirty, worthless stone?_

Despite the merchant’s words, the sapphire didn’t seem completely brightless, for something akin to a golden star was shimmering beautifully beneath its surface when touched by light.  
Maybe her mother had been more focused on its unusual beauty rather than the ugly truth behind its creation.

_A twelve rayed star..._\- she noticed -_ ... Almost looking like scars._

Alyda wondered how something like that could be deemed so poorly. Given the way the merchant had talked about the gem, he was hardly the creator of the jewel proudly displaying it. At first she had been focused on the mastery by which the lion’s head, undoubtedly of gold, had been carved. It suggested one of the best craftsmen, and he was unquestionably the best on that island, if not even beyond.

_Probably the capital, then. There aren’t many places where mother could have commissioned this necklace._

It was a strange gift nontheless, expecially coming from her.   
After their last encounter, Alyda was convinced something would change between them. She saw it in her big, blue eyes.

_No... mother wouldn’t be so cruel_ \- Alyda decided, then, remembering the way the woman took her hand. - _She wouldn’t come so far as to order a necklace for my nameday only to tell me how much she despises me._

So it was all by chance, then.  
The black gem just a meaningless, fortuitous choice. 

And yet, it was almost funny to think about how much fate turned out to be so fitting.


	12. The Price Of Hatred

“Hey! What are you doing?”  
The ginger squire yelled, squealing like a piglet when Alyda directed the next blow to his head.

“I believe I’m fighting properly. I don’t know what you are doing.” - she sneered - “Don’t worry, though, any idiot handling a wooden sword can be appointed as a knight, these days.” Alyda bellowed, turning towards the small crowd of few other soon-to-be knights, watching their companion failing at his sole job. 

_Ah, they’re not laughing this time. _  
If she had been in the place of that inept standing in front of her, they would’ve been choking with laughter, by now. 

“Spare me your mockery.” The ginger whined, dropping his sword on the countryard’s ground.

“Are you leaving so soon?” - She taunted - “Did I scare you, little princess?”

But he didn’t answer, and walked away instead.   
Suddenly, a flame ignited inside her.  
Alyda rushed after the squire with great strides and pulled his shoulder, forcing him to face her.

“Don’t turn your back on me when I’m talking to you!” - She growled - “I’m not your bloody neighbor, nor your housemaid. I’m the lady of this rock, and you’d better recall that the next time you speak with me.”

The squire looked straight at her daringly.  
“There won’t be a next time, trust me ‘my lady’.” He spat, scornful.

Alyda felt her own face distort with a fake smile.   
“Ah, I wonder if I’ll ever manage to live without.” She whispered at him coldly, patting the side of his face. 

The ginger pushed her hand away in annoyance and trotted away, brushing past the master at arms.

The man immediately watched at her with a grim, accusatory stare.

“Gerold.” She greeted him from afar, unconcerned.  
He pondered for a moment before deciding to approach her.

“My lady.” He nodded.

_Oh, so is it just ‘my lady’ from now on?_

“What’s the matter?” She asked quickly. 

Still, he remained silent, pensive.   
Gerold had always been a quiet man, yet he had been the one who thaught her the most, even without words. Somehow, now she was feeling nervous at the prospect of hearing his voice.

“I... talked to Lord Selwyn this morning.” He finally said.

_Something he didn’t tell me about._

“... About what?” 

He gave her a loud sigh, but his eyes were averted.  
“I think it’s time for me to go...”

A strange warmth suddenly crept along her neck.  
“To go... where? What do you mean?”

He shook his head slowly, still not looking at her.  
“To go where I can be of service.”

Alyda scowled in apprehension.  
“But you are still...” - When his eyes finally found her, she could read many things in their depths, and none of them was promising anything good for her. - “Is... is it because of me?”

When his answer didn’t come, Alyda knew she already had it anyway. 

_Four years. That’s the best I can get._

Three masters at arms came before him, and then left soon after. Gerold, for some unthinkable reason, had seemed willing to stay.

_Or maybe, he was simply forced to. _

“What did I do wrong this time?” She grumbled, after a while, her voice cracking.

Gerold’s breath seemed burdened with uneasiness.  
“I don’t like what I see when you’re fighting.”

That pierced her like a knife.

“Is there anyone here able to best me? You thaught me how to...-”   
She didn’t like the anguish in her own voice, but it didn’t stop her.  
“...I thought you were... I thought you were proud of me.” 

_Proud. _ _Gods, now it’s even more ridiculous to hear it out loud._

His face showed eyes filled with pity, something even worse than plain disappointment.  
“I am proud of your ability, I really am. The way you’re using it though...” - he continued, shaking his head in frustration - “...I failed at the most important thing. As your master of arms, I wasn’t able to teach you the core of fighting, and it has nothing to do with swords or any other weapon, but with purpose. If you can’t do it for the right reasons, then you shouldn’t do it at all, no matter how good you are at it.”

_The right reasons. _  
That was funny if she thought about the motivation behind her initial desire to hold a weapon.

_Be like mama. _   
_Maybe you’ll make mama proud, for once. _   
_Maybe she’ll like you better. _   
_Maybe she’ll stop looking at you like you’re her biggest mistake. Her biggest regret._

It had almost worked, for a while.   
They used to do some sparring at times, until they didn’t do it anymore. For no reason.  
Everytime they seemed to grow closer, something came to destroy any progress. 

A cruel game.

Maybe anytime she was close to me, she was able to give a better look to what I am.  
Maybe she saw something she didn’t like either.  
Or maybe she and Gerold simply saw the same thing, after all. 

_Maybe, maybe maybe.._

“Maybe I can do it because it’s something I like to do. What’s wrong with that?” - She retorted, her irritation making her breath laboured - “What should my right reasons be, ah? Which purpose is acceptable for your liking, mh? There’s no great war to fight, nor innocent people to save! You remind me of it any time I defeat one of your precious squires!” She spat.

Gerold straightened his back.  
“Aye, I can see plain as day how much you like fighting.” He said, then, severe. “Far too well indeed.”

“Speak clearly.” - She growled - “I’m tired of having to assume every damn thing by myself!” 

“Is there so much left to assume, my lady?” He hissed, bewildered. “No one wants to spar with you because you’re reckless with your sword and uncaring with your opponents. You risk severely hurting people just because you’re in the mood for it, or simply because you’re having a bad day. And you’re always having bad days, girl!”   
Gerold rubbed his face, as if torn to whether speaking further or to leave her there in her misery. He opted for the first.  
“If people are a medium for you to get rid of your frustrations, then I regret the day I helped you to improve at doing it.”

_Ah, of course. _  
She nodded with a cold smile.  
“Leave, then. Believe me, it’s gonna make your life a thousand times better.” 

Alyda threw the sparring sword at his feet, and saw him wincing at the impact.

She turned to leave the courtyard, but as she did so, Alyda found the gazes of the other squires.   
She had forgotten about their presence, but from the look they were giving her, they had likely heard every word.

_Yes, your beloved master of arms will go away forever, thanks to me. Now you can love me even more._

And after all, what did she even care?   
She simply wouldn’t be the only one paying this time.

_Now they’ll know what it feels like._

Her legs brought her furiously to Evenfall Hall. 

_I don’t need him. Nor I need a mother, nor a bloody father, nor friends or companions. _   
_I don’t need anyone at all._

On the way towards the tower, she accidentally bumped against a pair of handmaids. The tray and the porcelain they had in their hands fell at their feet, resounding loudly on the staircase.

_Grandfather’s medicine.._. Alyda noticed, grimly.

Deciding to avoid the annoyed faces of the two women, she picked up from the ground what remained intact, then she continued climbing up to the upper floor. Once she passed by his grandfather’s room, she vigorously opened the door and unceremoniously threw the treatments on the nearest table.

The old man stood up in worry from his seat, but Alyda answered his question before he could care to ask it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” She snarled.

However irrelevant, his chagrin seemed authentic.  
“Lyd, I’m sorry...-”

“Did you at least take the trouble to try to dissuade him?” - She interrupted him - “Or did you merely choose to agree with him?”

The silence which followed was more eloquent than a thousand words.

“Lyd, please, just try to give some thought to what he tried to say..-”

She shook her head in bitterness, while a venomous smile formed on her mouth. Before she could spit out the worst, Alyda decided to leave the room, deaf to his grandfather’s pleas.

She reached her chambers and pushed the door open, making sure to slam it shut with her key.   
When, finally, Alyda walked towards the window facing the shores, she found herself wondering which ship among those docked to the pier was going to take Gerold away.

Suddenly, something hit the corner of her eye.

The golden necklace which had been laying forgotten on her desk for weeks now, finally captured her attention again. The sunset's sun was hitting its surface, making it shimmer with undeserved light. 

Her fist clenched by its own will.

_They all think I’m their major regret now. _  
_I’ll show them what regret really is_.


	13. The Last Reign

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed update. It's frustrating when you realize you have to write chapter 13 when chapter 34356 feels so much better to write.   
More coming soon!

_At last..._

When the sight finally returned to his eyes, Bran felt the burden of his own body falling on him again.

The more he went on, the more difficult it became to get back. 

To his vessel.

No matter how many eyes one could have, though, even the three eyed raven had blind spots, apparently.   
For him, it had been Bran Stark’s body. 

Of all the things he could foresee correctly in the past, it had been surprising to find out how much he had been wrong about the time he had at his disposal. 

And now, that prison of flesh never missed the chance to remind him of it.

_It doesn’t matter now. _   
_Soon I won’t need it anymore._

The arrangements he had intended to complete in dozens of years had suddenly become less than a decade, and most of that time had gone up in smoke waiting for three of the four seeds to grow.

And finally, it was time.

_Soon earth and water will have their due...and then..._

A sudden knock at the door came to drag his attention.

“My king?”   
The round face of Samwell Tarly appeared along with the usual treatments.  
Despite being internal, the smell of his own rotting was becoming too much distinct for those around him to ignore, expecially for a grand maester.

_Expecially for me._

Each time Tarly came for the cure, Bran could feel the unasked question of the maester lingering between them. 

_How? How a desease from the fartest East had been able to reach the King of in the West?_

After few years and few whispers, maybe Samwell he had found his answer, in the end.

_And I’ve found mine._

It had to happen. This time there would be no kings left afterwards, nor lords. Nothing at all. 

“The lords will always choose a King for the lords.”  
Bran said, after a while. 

Sam rose his head, eyes huge with puzzlement.  
“Beg your pardon?”

Bran smiled, then shook his head lightly.  
“After I die, nothing will be the same.”

Samwell opened and closed his mouth a couple of time.  
“My king, you’ve choosen capable, good, selfless men for your small council... They won’t ruin what we’ve all been trying to build for years now.”

_I choose the right men. And the right woman._

“And what after they’re gone, my friend?”

“They chose you, my king.” - He said, smiling nervously - “They’ll find someone as worthy of the title as you are.”

Bran looked at him for a long time.   
“Did they?”

The maester frowned.  
“Of course we did... I did... and ser Davos, and queen Sansa, lord Tyrion, lord Renly and all the other major lords of the seven kingdoms!”

“And who will choose the lords coming after them?”

The man faltered for a moment.  
“The lesser houses might...”

Bran smiled.  
“A lesser house is hundreds times bigger than any paesant in the seven kingdoms. The lower people we’re willing to involve in future elections are still oceans apart from the richest farmer.”

“H-How... I mean, I think we’ve come to a good compromise compared to the old way...”   
Tarly chuckled nervously.

“The new way would be a travesty for the old one. A man cannot rule the seven kindoms. That’s why I’m here, grand maester.” 

_That’s why there won’t be another._

Samwell gave him a worried look, but didn’t seem willing to go any further on the matter.  
While he fumbled with the treatments, Bran could see the whirl of thoughts going through the maester’s mind.

When he finally was finished, Tarly piled tools and ointmentsin his arms, then excused himself and turned to leave the King’s chambers.

Once he would have felt sorry for him, for his wife and children. For all his own councilors.

Luckily enough, he wasn’t Bran Stark anymore.

“One last thing, grand maester.”

The man turned abruptly, almost worried.  
“Yes, my king?”

Bran looked out the window, the sea glistening with sunlight.   
“How long does it take to reach Storm’s end by ship?”

Samwell rose his brows in surprise. “F-From King’s Landing you mean?”

Bran kept his gaze on the waters.  
“...From the Sapphire Isle.”


	14. Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! :)

“They couldn’t find her m’lord...” 

Selwyn heard the guards’ voices behind him, but he refused to face them in their failure.  
He massaged his eyes and temples, the last eight nights spent in worry, pushing his sanity at risk. 

Selwyn couldn’t really claim to be surprised about the outcome of his men’s research. 

_No one saw a bloody thing around the docks on the isle, how can I hope for something other than unawareness at this point?_

When his response didn’t come, one of the guards took a step forward and spoke.

“We have some new findings, though...” - Selwyn rose his head, expectant, so the guard resumed his report - “We now know for certain that the only ship which left the shores that night was headed to Storm’s End. We managed to locate the captain after he came back to our docks. We interrogated him this morning...” 

_Storm’s End._

He knew his granddaughter too well for expecting her to ignite a small blaze without disastrous consequences. 

Selwyn breathed deeply, eyes closed.  
“....And?”

“He didn’t know anything, nor saw her personally, so he questioned his crew. One of his men confessed he made a bargain with a girl that matches our lady’s features, but he didn’t know who she actually was. He hid her in the ship’s hold in exchange for a small bag of gold. The man dismissed the fact as an insignificant infringement which he thought he could get away with.”

_Gold. Always the bloody gold._

“So, by now she’s basically only gods know where on the road to King’s Landing, and she has been on that path for four days. She might already be in the vicinity of Haystack Hall as far as we know, but Alyda's not used to long travels. She should get tired more easily and might be forced to take longer breaks. Maybe we could get a crow to House Errol in time for them to track her down on the road through the Kingswood. I’ll offer them two hundred Gold Dragons for their service.”

_If gold has taken her away, maybe it can bring her back to me too._

“My Lord...” - one of the guards begun - “Shouldn’t we consider some act of... defiance from the Lady’s part? What if House Errol’s men were forced to fight her back?”

“I want her to be brought here at once!” - Selwyn boomed, much to the guards’ surprise - “I don’t want her to be hurt, but if they have to smack her in the head and drag her here limp and unconscious by force, so be it!” 

“Yes my lord.” The men faltered, before turning on their heels and leaving in hurry.

_If they even manage to find her._

He sighed in distress.   
Despite her conspicuous looks, Alyda had always been masterful when it came to eluding the eye, if she decided to do so. 

_If she decides to cut her way through the forest, they will never be able to find her._

He tried his best to avoid any thoughts about groups of brigands, thieves or criminals who could find a pretty, lonely girl on their path, and the recklessness of someone who didn’t know the world outside of her island.

_Foolish, foolish girl._

No notes, no words left.  
And yet, he had known her intentions since the moment she went missing, and along with her, a full bag of gold and the lion necklace she had never worn.

Alyda’s attitude towards the jewel had changed drastically in the months following her nameday, but her erratic behaviour wasn’t something unusual since her rare moments of optimism or enthusiasm could be easily swept away by a few hours spent in solitude.   
When it came to that necklace, the circumstances should have been no different. And yet...

_Maybe I should have told her about Brienne intentions. Maybe I should have taken the risk to disappoint her again._

And, maybe, she wouldn’t have left. 

_What was she hoping to obtain? -_ he wondered.   
Putting her wellbeing at stake in exchange for the public shaming of her own mother. 

_What kind of joy are you hoping to gain from all of this?_


	15. Of Stags And Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darts and arrows for beasts, swords and maces for men. Yet, the close sight of a man’s eyes never prevented wars among armies.
> 
> "I wonder if all kings and queens have the guts to kill by their own hand those they sentence to death."
> 
> But maybe, all it takes would be to make an habit of it. “Men are all cowards in front of things they’ve never faced”, Gerold used to say.
> 
> "I’ll get used to it", she decided, "I always do".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year!

The weather had been far less forgiving than what she expected. 

At first, the waters had been as furious as raging flames in their relentlessness, the wind a fuel which helped Shipbreaker Bay earning its name. 

Just like Storm’s End.

Alyda had discovered how her stomach could hardly stand the waves’ harshness, something which would be any islander’s biggest shame. 

For four days she had been retching rentlessly, unable to eat anything different than few, salty pilchards.  
When she finally could sneak away from the accursed ship, Alyda threw herself on the dry land, swearing she would have never sailed again.

Weakened by four days of fasting and four sleepless nights, she had spent the first day closed in the first inn she could find, something very far away from the luxuries of Evenfall’s Hall.   
She realised she didn’t care about fanciness the moment her head touched the rough pillow in her rented room, nor did her stomach, for any food tasted good as long as it could be eaten on a steady ground.

The only thing which seemed to suffer from all of it, was her purse. 

After a less than cheap journey, the purchase of an average steed, a couple of rents and a few meals, her once rich bag of gold now cried the poorest man’s tears. 

_At least the horse can eat for free_, Alyda considered while she was sitting on its back, her eyes roaming inside her helplessles, empty purse.

The third day on her own, she was already on the road towards starvation. 

She had chosen to skip the lunch rather than face the consequences of her hunger, but the road trip had been far more strenuous than she could manage.

The fourth day, she had wished she could eat grass like her horse did. 

Alyda had the foresight to bring one of her grandfather’s crossbows with her, but somehow she had soon loathed that choice. 

The first kill had been a rabbit.  
It took a lot of willpower to pull he trigger, and no less to skin its limp body, but at least she had found him dead behind a bush.

Then, the following day, it came to a deer.

Alyda had always been committed to the idea of hating stags. Stupid creatures, she knew, coward and easy to scare away. She had always wondered why someone would chose such animal as sigil of his house and claim of being a worthy king of the Stormlands.  
They were nothing but pretty beast to look at, always ready to flee in front of any danger. 

That day, though, she had been the danger.  
As expected, the deer had ran away almost immediately, but luckily for her, the first dart wounded him on the thigh, slowing him down. The trees and the inexperience with the crossbow led her to miss the next two shots, but the third one finally managed to take the beast down. Or so she thought.

When Alyda reached its body, she was welcomed by a distressing view. The dart had pierced the animal’s neck, which was agonizingly trying to breathe through the flooding blood, yet the wound didn’t seem able to kill it in a short time. 

In spite of herself, she was forced to look.

Its eyes stared back at her, wide open and shiny, somehow innocent like those of an infant. 

Its laboured breath sounded like that of an old, ill man whose lungs were slowly abandoning him, day after day.

Its strangled, pained sounds were the cry of an heart-broken child trying to muffle her own tears. 

“I-I’m... sorry...” Alyda found herself stammering, as if the animal’s suffering could be eased by her mortification. She quickly reached for an other dart in her quiver, determined to put an end to deer’s misery, but she found it unforgivably empty.

_The sword._

When she looked at the beast’s eyes, her heart broke with bitterness.

She never thought she would have ever tarnished its blade with blood, but in her fantasies Alyda always imagined it plunged in the hearts of the most atrocious men. 

Apparently, the first life her sword would take, would be one of an innocent.

_A lion would not run away._   
_A lion would always stay and fight until the end. _   
_That’s why it would be the worthy sigil for a king._

Reluctant, Alyda unsheated her sword.

She clasped the hilt with both hands and knelt in front of the deer’s belly. She closed her eyes and pushed the blade in its heart, both flesh and ribcage fighting against the pressure of her sword. causing an uneasing, persistent feeling of resistance on her palms. 

It was only when the beast’s writhing finally ceased that Alyda could bear to open her eyes.  
The sight of the peaceful, lifeless animal was so blurry that she had to aknowledge the warm flow of her tears. 

With a crossbow she would not have felt the dart piercing through the body, nor felt it go limp with death, but above anything else, the long distance range would have spared her the sight of those eyes.

_Maybe that’s why hunters kill mainly with a bow._

That night Alyda managed to fill her belly, but she couldn’t enjoy her meal as much as she did before. 

_Darts and arrows for beasts_, she considered, _swords and maces for men_. Yet, the close sight of a man’s eyes never prevented wars among armies to happen.

_I wonder if all kings and queens have the guts to kill by their own hand those they sentence to death._

But maybe, all it takes would be to make an habit of it. “Men are all cowards in front of things they’ve never faced”, Gerold used to say.

_I’ll get used to it,_ she decided,_ I always do._

She tried to focus on her goal, then, using her poisonous rage to muffle her guilt.  
The first thoughts were directed to her long gone septa Secile, whose spiteful voice was almost fading from her memory, by now. 

_Almost._

Then it came to the handmaids, never surreptitious with their contempt, and then to the squires and boys who had the misfortune to fight her and lost, always blatant in their detestation. 

_All because of their mediocrity. _   
_And Gerold blamed and abandoned me because of it._

Had she been in their place in the dirt, they would have laughed and condemned her gender for her incompetence with a sword.

_But in their eyes, the fact that I was better meant that I was being a bitch._  
_And then even grandfather..._  
  
He didn’t care to convince them otherwise.   
Even worse, he probably agreed with them.

Alyda knew the reasons.  
She had been hearing those reasons for years.

_Because mother endured worse._   
_Because mother’s only fault was being ugly._   
_Because mother was never vicious against those who mistreated and insulted her._   
_Because despite everything, mother grew up good, selfless and perfect._

And compared to that, what right did her pretty daughter have?   
By what right did she dare to act and be this way?

_Being left behind over and over isn’t enough, after all._

Her jaw, fists and chest clenched, but at least the deer was forgotten.   
She fumbled in her pocket and took the lion necklace, observing how the black sapphire captured the light of the small fire she lit.

_‘It absorbs all the light without giving anything back.’ _She remembered.

Alyda was determined to find the crafter behind that jewel.   
She would drag him to court and make him spit the name of whom commissioned it.  
She would force the Lord Commander to tell everyone why such necklace was in the hands of the new, unknown lady of Tarth.

_I’ll make them kick her away from the King’s Guard._   
_She’ll have to leave the role she loves, and I’ll force her to take the one she always loathed._

_She’ll have to be my mother._   
_She’ll have to see my detestable face and listen to my hateful words every day._

_She’ll have to see me get married and leave, while she’ll have to remain on her stupid isle alone, until I decide to visit her every few years, if it suits me._

_And then we’ll see how long she stays decent._

All it took were few more days, she knew.  
And then, everything will go in its right place.


	16. Shards Of Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Men of Haystack Hall", Alyda recognized, "but what brings them away from the Kingsroad?"
> 
> They all seemed in a great hurry, almost frenetic, but when one of them finally noticed her, he immediately commanded his nervous, restless horse to stop.  
For some reason, he seemed to recognize her, and called for his companions’ attention, but an other knight among them dragged him away.

A grumble.

Alyda was startled awake by a sudden tremor, something unfamiliar.

Her eyes were wide open and her breath quickened, but after a while nothing else seemed to happen.

_I must have dreamt it_, she decided.

Alyda had experienced something similar each of the hundreds of times she dreamt of falling.   
The sensation always pushed her hard in the chest, making it feel the most frightening, distressing, real thing in the world. That was, at least, until she didn’t wake up in her bed. 

Alyda rose her eyes, searching for dawnbreak, but the forest’s crown made it almost impossible to see the sky. Rays of dim light, however, were making their way through the thick branches, something which made her clearly notice some movement among them.

_Crows_, she realised.

They were at least a dozen, probably drawn by her deer’s carcass. She was almost glad for it, as long as the animal’s flesh wasn’t being wasted.

Suddenly, another grumble came, but it sounded nearer, and yet felt less powerful. Different.

Alyda stood up, wary, until the sound became less and less muffled, then similar to galloping hooves and a nearing shouting of men.

Without really thinking, she rested her hand on the crossbow, and waited.

Finally, a group of men on horses came out from the depth of the Kingswood. Their shields were the first thing to hit her eye, for they were shining with yellow and orange colors.

_Men of Haystack Hall,_ Alyda recognized,_ but what brings them away from the Kingsroad?_

They all seemed in a great hurry, almost frenetic, but when one of them finally noticed her, he immediately commanded his nervous, restless horse to stop.  
For some reason, he seemed to recognize her, and called for his companions’ attention, but an other knight among them dragged him away.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, you fool!” - Alyda could hear the knight shouting at him. - “We have to go!” 

The man glanced at her one last time, but then followed the rest of the group, galopping away.

_What in the seven hells...?_

In all that turmoil, Alyda had failed to notice the distress of her poor nag who, hadn’t he been tied to a near tree, would have fled away already.

“Come on now...” Alyda tried to soothe him, though it was never the thing she could do best.   
Despite her inadequacy, it took only few caresses on the muzzle to finally calm the horse down.  
“Good boy.” She patted him on the neck before mounting on his back. “You’re still a nag, though.”

As she said so, an other booming sound came from afar, which led the poor beast on the verge of frenzy once again.

_I can’t ride like this..._

Alyda exploited the horse’s anxiety to direct him towards the Kingsroad. She managed to handle his hectic pace for a long time, thankful to the long pauses in between the several rumbles which followed. 

The more she rode on the Kingsroad, the louder the noises became, until finally, the unevitable happened.

One last, deafeing blast shook the ground. 

Before she could do anything, Alyda saw her horse rearing with a piercing neigh, and felt her feet loosing the brackets. She fell back, a staggering pain in her spine which left her gasping for breath.

She expected to hear the sound of the horse’s hooves leaving but, strangely enough, it didn’t happen.

Actually, she couldn’t hear nothing at all.

Alyda felt her lids become heavy, the pain clouding the sight of the purplish sky.

She suddenly felt light and at peace, her world dark but welcoming and gentle. Merciful.  
It was only when her eyes opened again that she realised nothing of that was true.

Immediately, the pain came to stagger her again, forcing her to remain still. The only thing she could do was gazing at the sky, but its color was now of a darkening gold. Something wasn’t right.

_Is it sundown already?_

She wondered for how much time she had been unconcious. Hours? Maybe days?

Alyda tried to move, and with a loud groan, she slowly pushed her upper body forward, glad of being able to feel her legs. When she finally could see beyond her feet, Alyda found the answer behind the blast.

She dragged herself up, then limped a few steps forward, until she reached a devastating gash on the ground, at least fifteen feet wide, and as many yards deep. And down there he laid.

The poor nag had likely fallen inside right after his rearing, visibly breaking both his front legs and neck in the impact. The sight clenched her stomach, something she recognised as sadness.

_So I’m stranded now, I guess..._

Alyda watched the sky once again, a strange feeling of uneasiness looming over her.

In spite of everything, she found herself wishing her mother was there.

_Soon_, she thought, trying to spur herself to go on.   
Somehow, it was enough to ease her fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Share your opinions if you wish to do so :)


	17. And Not A Soul To Hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'The last time I saw something like this, a dragon was destroying this city.'
> 
> Tyrion looked up instinctively, almost expecting to see a winged shadow cutting through the sky, but what he saw instead was somewhat far more terrifying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, my health was failing me these weeks...

A blast.

Tyrion felt his chair moving under his legs, their goblets and flagon trembled and fell from the table.

Screams.

He could barely meet Podrick’s horrified eyes before an other blast came to shake the earth, and in a few seconds, the whole tavern became the emblem of chaos.

Tyrion found himself sprawled on the ground, while a furious motion of feet surrounded him in a vortex of agonizing fear. A woman fell in front of him, her panicked eyes meeting his for a split second before being overwhelmed by the crowd. He covered his head with both arms before the weight of the raving huddle could crush his skull. 

“Podrick!” He heard himself screaming in terror, praying to all the gods the knight wasn’t already laying dead on the ground. 

Tyrion kept screaming his name, over and over again, until a strong hand dragged him away.

“We must get out of here!” Podrick shouted, pulling his arm. Tyrion managed to regain his balance, then followed the knight towards the exit. 

But there was no way out.

The crazed herd was piling up at the door, dozens of bodies squeezing and breaking their bones in the attempt to gain their way towards salvation.

“Come!” - Podrick ordered, leading him away - “This way m’lord!” 

Tyrion watched him in confusion before realising the man was aiming at the window. He quickly pushed it open, then lifted his small body uncerimoniously, allowing him to jump over. As Podrick did the same, Tyrion watched the turmoil displayed in front of him. 

Thousands of people were rushing through the streets like they were chased by lions, screaming and panicking over an invisible enemy.

“Stay with me my lord!” Podrick said, shielding his small form.

“No need to tell me!” Tyrion countered, eyes wide.

The knight watched around him in confusion, and he couldn’t really blame him. The danger seemed to be coming from every place, for people were fleeing from and towards any direction he could find.

_The last time I saw something like this, a dragon was destroying this city._

Tyrion looked up instinctively, almost expecting to see a winged shadow cutting through the sky, but what he saw instead was somewhat far more terrifying.

_Oh gods..._

The sun was being twisted by an invisible, unrelenting force, and its features appeared almost broken, rays deformed in a fading spiral among the clouds.

“My lord!” - Podrick called. - “The king! We must..-”

A third blast, and before their ears could recover, from the deafening bang, the earth opened.  
The quake made them crash on the ground, but hundreds of people got pulled inside the gaping, black mouth. Soon after, the building followed the same fate, cracking and collapsing onto the horrified, screaming throng. 

Tyrion felt the ground tilting unnaturally under his body.

He tried to drag himself up, realising he was unable to keep his balance as the broken boulder separating him from his death became increasingly unstable. He desperately groveled back trying to reach a steady ground, while men, women and children around him rolled and slided down towards their demise. 

Once again, Podrick grabbed his arm with force, then pulled him up without much effort.  
“Lord Tyrion, we must reach a ship! There’s no safer place then water now!”

“What about Bran?!” Tyrion shouted.

Podrick’s face became a mess of fear, worry and determination.  
“I’m going.”

Tyrion searched his eyes.  
_Yes, you’re going to die._

“Can you reach the docks on your own, m’ lord?” The knight asked, then.

In that moment, Jaime’s face came to haunt him again.

He left everything he wanted the most for the sake of what he thought was right, his duty. He abandoned companions, a winning side, a life of happiness. 

_A lover._

And his own duty, now, was towards the king, nothing else meaningful left.

“No...” - Tyrion said - “If we’ll ever reach the docks, we’re doing it together.”

_Or die together._

They weren’t gonna make it, but he would no remain alone and without a purpose in that world.

Suddenly, the crowd around them gasped in horror, and when Tyrion finally glanced behind him, he knew everything was over.

“The keep! The Red keep!” A woman screamed, over and over again.

The sound which followed was one of a cracking mountain, and the sight that of an hard-fought peace starting to collapse.

The first to fall was the Tower of the Hand, and then, slow and relentless like a giant seawave, it came to the whole upper structure. Tyrion could only catch a glimpse of the White Sword Tower cracking at its base, before sliding into the waters of Blackwater’s Bay. What remained standing, finally sank down almost in its entirety, swallowed whole by the earth.

And soon after, time seemed to stop.

_Bran..._

The destruction left the city enveloped in dust dense like the thickest fog, and the ceasing of screams and blasts left nothing but a ringing in his ears.

Nothing left to see.  
And nothing left to hear.


	18. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How long have you been away from home, my lady?”
> 
> “About a month, maybe more.” She shrugged. “There have been some unexpected events, as you well know.”
> 
> “Yes, more than what you know, I’m afraid...”   
He mumbled, grim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry

_King’s Landing._

Or at least, what was left of it.

The retreating waters gave to chaos and turmoil a few days of rest, but devastation and death were still cutting the ravaged flesh of the city, whose only structure still barely recognizable was the base of the Red Keep. 

Despite everything, Alyda couldn’t help but wonder if her mother had made it out in time.   
The woman might have rather die than being publicly humiliated and abased, deprived of any kind of respect her comrades might held for her. 

_But the earthquake came first, and denied me this victory._

She was still torn on her next move.   
She should have looked for her, Alyda supposed, but rumors had king Brandon the Broken squashed under the fallen part of the keep, while others claimed he left the capital with one of the few ships remaining. 

_I know which option I’d prefer._

Still, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard follows where the King goes.   
Alyda had almost wished for a chance to slay the king herself, if only to see the horror on her mother’s face.

Then she would have known the true shame of having her as a daughter. But maybe, all it would’ve taken was her pretty girl storming into court screaming to the world who she really was.

_It doesn’t matter now..._

Alyda pushed those fantasies aside and took a look around her. 

Most people were gathered among the ruins, the wailing of small children a constant in the ear, something which made her almost deaf towards them by now. 

Beside the searching of a shelter for herself, looking for some food seemed the best option at the moment.

She followed a group of few men who were carring handcarts with food and supplies, until they arrived at the doors of a poorly arranged inn, the people inside crowded everywhere in its remains, some on the floor, others sitting around the tables.

_I guess it’s better than nothing..._

Alyda searched instinctively for a pale, blonde head amoong the rabble, but felt an unusual sense of anguish when she found nothing resembling it. Troubled by her own uneasiness, she decided instead to approach the innkeeper hoping for a decent supper.  
What she actually got, though, was a shapeless mass of gods knew what, which she was asked to pay a silver stag. 

“Are you joking?” She growled at the smug man behind the pot.

“This is what you get.”- He told her with a foul mouth lacking several teeth - “If you’re craving for something better, then go find it somewhere else.” 

Alyda watched him with fiery eyes before giving in with a cutting smile.   
“Very well.” She said, handing him his payment, but as he went to take it, she made it slip from her fingers. The coin fell straight into the pot, and inside the boiling mess he dared to call a worthy supper.  
“Oh, how clumsy of me.” She smiled.

The man’s mouth hung open for a few moment in bewilderment, then he stood up in fury.  
“Do you think yourself clever, you silly bitch?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded.

Alyda could feel the eyes of the people around falling on them, their buzzing voices becoming less and less audible.

“You’re giving me another one!” He hissed.

“This is what you get.” - She smiled - “If you’re craving for something more, then go find it somewhere else.”

“You’ll do as I ask or else I’m calling the guards!”

“Why, afraid of being beaten up by a girl?” She sneered opening her arms.

Suddenly, a third voice joined their quarrel.  
“I’m paying for the girl.”

When she turned, Alyda was surprised to see how the owner of that voice was standing several feet lower her shoulder, so much so that she could have mistaken him for a child if it weren’t for his thick, greish beard and his deep pitch.

_Is this a dwarf?_

“He already got his payment.” - She taunted - “All he has to do is eating all the shit in that pot, then he’ll be worthy of his silver stag.”

The small man glared her.  
“Don’t push it girl.”

The innkeeper took his money, while the dwarf decided to drag her away by the sleeve before she could say anything more.

“That was pretty dashing.” He muttered.   
“Would you like to join us?” The dwarf said pointing toward a table where an other man in his late thirty was sitting with a worried face. “Unless you rather sit on the ground.”

Alyda glanced quickly at all the people laying on the filthy floor, then decided to go straight to the table and took sit on the bench.   
The dwarf sat at the head of the table with an half smile, while the other man kept looking at her furtively. 

“Is there something on my face?” Alyda grunted at him. She saw his plump cheeks going red.

“No m’lady.” He said before drinking copiously from his cup.

“No, didn’t think so.” She grumbled, smug. Her smile disappeared as soon as her nose caught the smell of the soup she was supposed to eat.

_Gods, this crap is awful. _  
She tried to eat a spoonful, regretting the decision as soon as the food touched her tongue.

“Oh come on, you must eat if you wanna grow up.” The dwarf smiled. “After all, I paid for it.”

“I paid for it too.” She snapped. “And it was already a one time too much, I assure you.”

The tiny man chuckled.  
“Here, try it with this.” The dwarf said filling her a cup of wine. “It makes everything more bearable.”

As he did so, suddenly something dawned on her.  
“Are you trying to make me drunk for a fuck?”

Both men almost choked on their drink.   
Somehow she felt rather offended.

“You’re a fine girl, my lady, and anyone would love to allure you into their bed, but this is not our case.”   
The dwarf said mostly embarassed.   
“I’d like to ask you some question if you don’t mind, though. Consider responding them as a sign of gratitude for your dinner.”

“Not much to be grateful for, let me tell you...” - She said drinking a full sip of wine -“What kind of questions are we talking about?” 

“Well, I never saw you in the city before, and you tend to stand out from the crowd. You’re not from here, aren’t you?”

Alyda eyed him suspiciously.   
“No... no, I’m not from here.”

“And where are you from? The Reach...? Or... the Stormlands, maybe?” 

She watched them carefully.   
The dwarf could feign his indifference on the matter way better than his companion, who now looked rather expectant and anxious about his inquiry. 

“What makes you say that?” She grinned.

The dwarf shrugged.   
“Let’s say you have the looks...”

“Ah, so all stormlanders are too tall, golden haired and surly?” Alyda scoffed. 

“Some of them are..” He said leaning forward on his elbows, a fond smile on his lips.  
Despite the other man’s apparent somberness, there was a strange shimmering in the dwarf’s eyes, as if he was looking at someone mostly dear to him. 

Except that the two of them were complete strangers. 

_Maybe that’s what makes him give me that look. No one who really knows me has ever looked at me that way._

“Why are you here?” - He asked her then, gesturing around - “Are you not a little too young to be in here? Alone?”

“I’m seventeen! I’m not a child!” Alyda retorted, tapping the table nervously. She considered his question for a moment, not too sure about the men’s intentions.

_Well, what does it matter at this point, I guess?_

“I came here to collect a small debt.”   
She decided, in the end.

The two exchanged a troubled look.  
“A debt? You mean like... money or something?”

“I mean like an unfulfilled promise. Actually many of them, to be fair....” 

The fondess in the dwarf’s eyes disappeared as soon as he really saw her. “You’re after someone.”

“Isn’t that obvious?” She grinned.

“Who?”

Alyda inhaled sharply. _To hell with it. _  
“The beloved Lord Commander of the bloody Kingsguard. I’m not sure of what remains of it...”

The other man stopped eating and rose his head, watching her intensely. Threateningly.  
She stared at him in turn, daring him to do a wrong move, but he suddenly stood up and stormed off from the inn.

“Pod!” the dwarf called after him, but he didn’t turn.

_Yes, run away little man._  
“Your friend is a true lion, isn’t he?”

The dwarf watched her baffled, but then his mood changed drastically.   
“How long have you been away from home, my lady?”

“About a month, maybe more.” She shrugged. “There have been some unexpected events, as you well know.”

“Yes, more than what you know, I’m afraid...”   
He mumbled, grim.

She watched him puzzled.  
“What do you mean?”

“Lady Brienne... the Lord Commander was on her way to Tarth, but...”

His eyes fell on the ground. She didn’t like it.

“But... what?” Alyda urged.

The dwarf breathed deeply.   
“The ship she was travelling on... it reportedly sunk due to an exceedingly violent storm. No one survived...”

Something suddenly slashed through her belly.

_No one survived._

Unbidden, the image of the lady knight materialized in her head, her form dragged down to the sea ground by the weight of her golden armor, where thousands of fishes would feast on her lifeless body. 

_She’s dead. _   
_I came here to ruin her, and she’s dead._

“It took them by surprise, apparently,” - The man continued - “...An almost innatural fury even for the most raging of the storms. I believe a crow was sent to Evenfall Hall more than a month ago... It must have arrived to your aviary far later than expected... and after your departure.”

_Dead... She’s dead. _

A sudden, unseen force clenched her stomach, forcing her to breathe far too quickly.

“I.. I don’t... ca-can’t” Alyda begun, but ended up vomiting at the side of the bench, causing the horror of the people around their table. The retching which followed were fruitless, for her stomach was mostly empty, yet it was enough to mine her ability to breathe.

After a while she realised that the dwarf had been holding her hair back for some time, rambling his apologies and distress over her loss.

_My loss. What would you know._

Alyda tried to drag herself up as best she could.  
“I need...air.” She croaked, leaving.

“Yes...yes of course, please let me hel-” The dwarf begun before she shoved him away in the motion. 

As soon as she slammed the inn’s door open, Alyda was wecolmed by a cold breeze. She took as many steps her legs allowed before collapsing on her knees.


	19. The Best Outcomes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'A ghost.'
> 
> When she had entered the inn, her goldenhead had pierced his eyes like a small light in the dark, but once he finally got a glimpse of her face, Tyrion had been struck by a knife in his chest.
> 
> 'Jaime.'

_A ghost._

When she had entered the inn, her goldenhead had pierced his eyes like a small light in the dark, but once he finally got a glimpse of her face, Tyrion had been struck by a knife in his chest.

_Jaime._

He thought he had forgotten his brother after all those years. There were moments in which he could rely on the brief images still lingering in his fading memories.

Sometimes it was Jaime’s eyes.   
Other times Jaime’s smirk.   
Jaime’s voice.

Most of them were reflections of the young, glorious golden lion his brother had once been, and the same reflection had been standing in front of him until few moments ago in that wretched inn.

_And now there she lays, another broken thing among the ruins._

Suddenly, the rushing pace of Podrick’s feet reached Tyrion’s ear.

“M’lord! What...?”

“I told her of our lady knight.”

Pod stood there for a few moments, speechless and pained as he only could be. His eyes then danced from him to the girl’s form, now curled against the nearest rubble. He could hear his thoughts as if he was shouting them.

“I think her reaction pretty much confirms our suspects.” - Tyrion said carefully - “Mine, at least.”

“No... no, my lady... I mean, the Lord Commander... she would have never...”

“...What? Hidden a girl who looks like one of the most hated men in Westerosi’s history? Kingslayer and betrayer of the North?” Tyrion cut him. 

He watched the anguish growing on Podrick’s face. 

_I wonder what’s worst, if the feeling of guilt or betrayal. _

From his own brother’s experience, it was likely the first. 

“She could have told us.” Pod protested. “She should have told me! Why didn’t she trust me with it?”  
Tyrion doubted there could be any kind answer to the man’s question. 

“Lady Brienne was an honest woman. If she decided to hide such truth, there was a reason, and there’s nothing you can do about it, if not accepting it.” 

Podrick shook his head in frustration.   
“Are we certain?”

“About what?” Tyrion asked, puzzled.

“That she is... well... his.” He stammered.

Tyrion chuckled in dismay.  
“Pod, I’m more certain that she’s of my brother than your lady’s.” 

Podrick watched at him with a deep scowl.

“And besides...”- Tyrion continued - “... after what happened in Winterfell, I doubt our Lord Commander ever allowed someone else in her bed so soon. This girl’s seventeen, so unless I’m miscalculating, your lady spent several, fitting months in Tarth after the king’s election.”

And she didn’t need you there with her. 

“She was in front of us during the King’s election. - Podrick protested - “ There was nothing... wrong about her.”

_And yet she looked miserable and anxious. _ _But that’s what grief should do to you, isn’t it?_

“You can hide things pretty well behind an armor when they’re not showing properly yet.”

Podrick looked at the girl again, then sighed loudly. “If she was with child, then why did she accept joining the King’s Guard as Lord Commander?”He whispered, troubled.

_I’d like to know it too._

“As Hand of the King I was only aware of her new role as Lord Commander. When the King allowed her to go back to Tarth for some time, I was told she needed to help her father with the several problematics about the succession. Since she was the only living heir of Selwyn Tarth, and she was relinquishing everything to serve the King, I considered it a reasonable, thoughtful offer from Bran the Broken to allow house Tarth to find a worthy successor without his direct imposition.”

A question still lingered between them.

“Do you think the King knows?” Pod murmured.

“I’m inclined to think he does.” 

_Bran the Broken does know much about many things._

“And he asked her to be the Lord Commander anyway?” He hissed, baffled.

“And who was left? My brother, Selmy, Ser Loras, the Cleganes... they were all gone, and Lady Brienne has bested most of them even when they were still breathing. Who would you choose as your trusted Lord commander? Bronn? Arya Stark? A Queenslayer?” 

Pod shook his head, troubled.   
“I think there’s more than that.” 

“Lady Brienne meant the world to you, I know, but in the greater game she had always been a small pawn. I’m quite certain there’s nothing more than that.”

A deep scowl appeared on the knight’s face.  
“Lady Sansa wouldn’t be queen without her, Winterfell would be of the Boltons, and lord Snow would have died in the battle of the bastards along with all those who helped us defeating the Night King. Who would have stopped Daenerys, then?” - He spat, insulted. - “The world might be ruled by the greatest few, the same whose songs and books tell us about. Yet the smallest act can cause the greatest consequences, even if accomplished by the lowest among men.” 

_Yes, and the smallest act shattered and destroyed my entire family and all the seven kingdoms along with it._

“Forgive me Podrick, I didn’t mean to offend you, but sometimes things simply are what they are. No greater plans, no greater purposes, nothing more. She was nothing more than a good woman and likely the best fighter alive. That’s what our king needed from her. Maybe he conceded to keep her secret in exchange for her service, it would be a good compromise if you ask me.” 

“A King’s guard member cannot have family for a reason. It’s not about honor, it’s about priority. Would you chose your king’s wellbeing over your wife and children’s?”

_I killed more among my beloved ones than among my enemies._

“Maybe the king didn’t want her to choose between him and her daughter. She had both things.” Tyrion shrugged.

“And left her own child behind?”- Podrick shook his head - “This is not her. I knew she wasn’t happy in King’s Landing, she never was. I thought grief had consumed the part of her I saw in Winterfell, when she could smile and feel whole and worthy. Now I see the reason. Her happiness was elsewhere, but she had to stay here because the King forced her to do so.”

Tyrion scoffed.  
“Robert did as it pleased him and took what he wanted, and so did Joffrey, Aerys and all those kings Bran can’t barely resemble. We both know how he’s different.   
He’s not even human. He doesn’t desire, he doesn’t hate, he doesn’t feel.”

_Nor loves. Just like the dead._

“But he does what he thinks is right, isn’t he? No matter the cost.” Podrick retorted. 

“He does what he thinks is necessary.”

“In the name of what?”

“Of the best outcomes.” Tyrion said scratching his grey beard, tired. “The greater good.”

“Daenerys promised the same thing while she spoke over the ashes of King’s Landing.” Podrick spat.

“She was driven by unstable emotions, terrible feelings and desire. As I said, our king isn’t.”

“Is there any difference if the results are the same?”

_The time spent with Lady Brienne has made you far too judgemental._

“Having her as Lord Commander must have been necessary if he did what he did.” - Tyrion replied, almost sheepish - “And besides... we are talking about the misfortune of a single member of the Kingsguard, Bran didn’t burn King’s Landing.”

Podrick gazed at him with intense, dark eyes.  
“Let’s hope the best outcomes will never need to rely on something like that.”

Tyrion watched the golden girl, crouched miserably among the docks’remains.

_Or maybe, they already did._


	20. The Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion felt his hands trembling.   
“You told me I could save my brother’s child, his only remaining child!”
> 
> “And you did.” Bran nodded.

“I want to speak to the king!”

The guard towered over him in front of the ship’s main cabin, his eyes cautious.  
“Our king isn’t in the conditions to speak to anyone, as you well know, dwarf.”

“I’m not anyone.” Tyrion challenged. “I’m the Hand of the king, if I remember correctly, as much as Ned Stark was when he transcribed king’s Robert final wishes, much for the queen’s displeasure. Now let me pass, I wasn’t asking for your permission when I demanded entrance.”

The guard looked at him in disapproval, but in the end he got out of the way. “Just a few minutes. I don’t he has left more than that, anyway...”

Tyrion stormed in the ship’s main room, the king still in his bed, his eyes white as winter’s snow. 

He moved slowly towards him, until he found himself at Bran’s right side. Now he could see the bandages covering his deep wounds stained with fresh blood.

_I wonder how the guards even managed to take him to this harbor alive._

“My king.” he murmured softly.

After a few moments, the man’s eyes returned to their natural state, now staring straight at him, no pain showing on his features, no concern, nor distress for his own condition.

Tyrion watched him carefully, something akin to anger now rising in his chest. “You know why I’m here.”

“You found her.” He finally stated, calm.

Tyrion clenched his fists.   
“You lied to me.”  
  
“I never lied to you. I told you what you needed to hear, as much as you needed to hear.”

“And Jaime?” He felt a warm sensation in his eye as he spoke his name out loud. “Did you tell him what he needed to hear too?”

Bran didn’t answer.

“You made me believe I could save them! Jaime, my sister, the child... the three of them died because of it!” Tyrion urged, greedy for answers.  
  
“The two of them.” The king said.

“What?”

“The queen wasn’t with child.”

Tyrion felt his hands trembling. “You told me I could save my brother’s child, his only remaining child!”

“And you did.” Bran nodded.

Tyrion breathed deeply, almost painfully.   
“And what did he believe instead?”

“He knew he had a choice. By the time he reached the queen, he was aware that the life he could save wasn’t hers, nor inside her. I believe he had known long before he left Winterfell.” The king said passionless.

“Did he know he was about to die too...?” Tyrion whispered.

“I gave him the right amount of awareness.”

“When?”

“I spoke with him in the Godswood. And afterwards.”

“...And?”

“I told him the truth. One made of several outcomes.”

Something akin to a smile appeared on the king’s lips.  
“Had the Queen lived, his child would have died.”

A bitter smirk cut through Tyrion’s face.  
“You were very careful not to use names.” 

Bran turned to look at him straight in the eye.  
“Names don’t matter in such balance. Whoever you decided to pick, the result would’ve been true nontheless. Nor Cersei nor Daenerys would have been merciful towards the remaining Lannisters. Or Starks. Jon and Jaime did what they were supposed to.”

Tyrion saw both honesty and deception in his eyes, something he had seen handled so masterfully before only by Varys and Littlefinger. And then, unbidden, he thought about Cersei. 

_What if she had learned about Jaime and the lady knight in time?_

Another love.   
And child born from it, nontheless.   
But for her, nothing left.   
Nor the kingdom, nor her family, nor her lover or an heir. 

_Her fury and poison would have known no boundaries, no obstacles. _

Bronn’s threats in Winterfell had been convincing enough, back then.

_‘You care for one innocent’_ he had said to Jaime, back when his brother was sitting imprisoned and defeated in his queen’s tent. 

And he did care.

_He had to be sure Cersei would die, and yet couldn’t bring himself to kill her._

It would have broken him until the end of his days, he knew him well enough.

“Daenerys could have killed her, though...”- Tyrion whispered - “...You didn’t need him to do it.” 

Bran looked at him with something resembling both pity and amusement.   
“...A deluded woman, prostrated outside the Red Keep begging for mercy, for the sake of her unborn child. Not even the Queen of ashes would have gone that far. But the Keep’s dungeon, luckily, wasn’t that merciful.”

_Because Jaime led her there._

He had always thought Jaime had intended to take her to the boat outside the tunnels. But now...

_Cersei could have been dangerous even from a cell, even more so if Daenerys was meant to die soon after. And bags of gold find easily their way through iron bars. _

He knew this, and so did his brother.  
And yet, the king’s untroubled tone on the matter made Tyrion want to choke the life out of him.

_The wounds will take care of it._

“So this is how it has been working for all these years... You simply pulled a string each time and used the sight to discover what would happen... so that you could choose the next one accordingly?”

The king smiled again. 

“We’re toys to you... our lives are just little games in your hands...” Tyrion went near him, so much so he could almost feel his breath on his own skin. “All of this, the wars we fought, the people who died...”- he said with a trembling voice - “ I lost everyone I cared for, all of them gone, so that you could put yourself on the throne...”

The king watched him blankly.  
“This body is made of flesh... it smells like death.” Bran said, after a moment - “What was worth all the suffering you talk about if I left these kingdoms and their people in the hands of other men? What if I left these lands to war and death once again, without a true, worthy protector watching over them?”

“And what about this?!” Tyrion hissed, pointing at the devastation beyond the little window beside them.“Didn’t you see this? What bright future have you in mind for all of us, now?” 

The king didn’t answer.

“Tell me something... what was your great plan, my king?” He growled then, spiteful. “You took the trouble to destroy thousands of people and my whole family for the sake of this girl... a girl you deprived of a father and a mother... a girl now filled pain and resentement...”

“....And rage...” Bran said, sounding almost hopeful. “Don’t let her fire die out, my friend. Keep the fire going... feed it.”

Tyrion’s eyes widened in outrage and bewilderment.  
“What did you say? ...What-?”

And once again, no answer came. 

The light left the king’s eyes soon after, but there was no relief Tyrion could feel.

The man should have deserved to feel pain, the dreading feeling of loss and despair, of loneliness and guilt.   
Yet none of that could touch him in death, just like it couldn’t in life.

_I can’t wait to thank Jaime for denying me this last, small pleasure._

Given the circumstances, he supposed it wouldn’t take much long.


	21. A Wounded Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “One time... she confessed me she had a lover... many, many years before, one she could not forget. For the best and the worst...”

The three eyed raven.  
An eye for the past, one for the present and one for the future. And now those eyes were closed forever.

Tyrion wished he hadn’t been so blind whereas Bran the Broken had been the ruthless architect of their present. 

_My brother made him, and then I helped him unmaking my brother. All for the sake of this sullen, ill tempered girl. _   
_And what would I have done knowing all of this?_

No, he decided, he couldn’t have done anything better than what he did in his ignorance.   
Daenerys was laying dead on the snow before she could unleash dragon’s fire on the traitorous Lannister blood and all those affiliated to them.   
The rightful heir to the Throne was lost somewhere in the Lands of always Winter.  
The North was in the hands of his beloved sister.   
All those who fought the war of the five kings were buried in the ground, and those who remained became true, loyal friends of the Crown. No enemy left.

_Peace. _   
_Everything fell in the right place, didn’t it?_

Tyrion walked on the deck and towards the pier, where he could observe the golden girl sitting on the walkway’s edge. Podrick wasn’t too far away.

When the knight spotted his short figure, he searched his eyes with worry. It took a small movement of his greyish head for him to realise that Bran the Broken was no longer with them.

Tyrion reached the two of them with slow, tired steps.  
The girl was still lost in her thoughts, and he doubted that Podrick had even dared to speak with her in his absence.

“Lord Tyrion...?” Podrick begun, but he stopped him with a small gesture of his hand.

“Did she tell you something?” Tyrion asked him, softly.

Podrick shook his head.   
“No m’ lord, she’s not uttered a word.”

Tyrion observed her from afar.  
_I don’t even know her name, and I don’t even think I want to know._

He wanted her to turn, though, yet he was frightened by the idea of getting near her to achieve his intent. 

_Maybe that’s what guilt does to you._

Or maybe it was something else.

“My lady...” he called, as kindly as he could.  
She shifted on her sit, but kept showing her back. 

“Not now.” She muttered menacingly, her voice low and muffled. Podrick watched him worriedly.

“Please, my lady...”- he tried again - “...this will only take a min-” 

Her head turned abruptly.   
And suddenly, he didn’t dare to add another word.

The girl’s stare was something far more than threatening.   
It was something familiar, something that was able to grip both his stomach and chest.

_Cersei used to look at me in the same way._

When he heard Podrick placing instinctively his palm on the sword’s hilt, Tyrion knew he wasn’t the only one having such dreadful feeling. The girl’s eyes fell where the knight had moved his hand, and something in them changed into a more tangible danger. She stood with a smooth movement without taking her gaze off him, and when she suddenly decided to approach them, Tyrion felt his heart’s pace becoming furious.

“Please, please Pod... no!” Tyrion rambled putting himself between the two. 

“You want to fight me little man?” She challenged with spite.

For a second Tyrion thought her defiance was aimed at himself, but he noticed soon enough how the girl wasn’t minimaly concerned with his minute presence. 

Her deadly stare was instead still directed to his former squire. Podrick was mantaining a deep, stern scowl on his face, but didn’t make a move against her.

_Your beloved lady’s flesh and blood, threatening to beat you up here and now where you stand. _   
_This one might be another Joffrey from what I see. _

Tyrion dared to push her gently back, mostly to remind her of his presence between them.   
When he did, the tall girl glared at him, but the intense glistening in her eyes betrayed all her efforts at toughness.

_No. Nor Cersei, nor Joffrey. _   
_This girl is just a ferocious, wounded beast, not a monster._

Tyrion gave her the kindest smile he could manage.  
“I know what it feels like. I understand your loss, even if I never knew my mother.”

“I never said she was my mother.” She hissed in defense, her eyes squinting like a cat’s.

“No... No you didn’t. But I know nontheless.”

Tyrion soon felt Podrick’s insisting gaze on him.   
He decided to ignore it.

“Did... did she tell you?” The girl scowled, sounding almost hopeful.

“No, I’m afraid she didn’t tell anyone.”

Her face fell, but the momentary, blatant disappointment was soon replaced by a stiff, half smile.

“Ah, of course not. I was her filthy little secret after all. The biggest stain on her immaculate life...” - She was talking mostly to herself, playing nervously with her necklace - “...Too bad all those who praised her didn’t live long enough to see it.” 

Then, out of nowhere, something seemed to hit her mind. Whatever it was, it made the girl turn and look straight in Podrick’s eyes once again. 

“She was your Commander, wasn’t she?”   
The girl asked to the knight, then. 

Pod gave her a wary, small nod.

“And have you known her generosity as well?”  
She added, with a maliciousness his companion didn’t seem to detect.   
Tyrion couldn’t avoid but look at him in worry.  
  
“Lady Brienne was generous and selfless beyond reason...”- Podrick said, stern - “One among the most valorous knights in the history of Westeros.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” She cut him, sharp.

When realization finally stung Podrick, Tyrion felt his own chest tightening for the good knight.

_She is trying to push one of the most gentle souls in the seven kingdoms, and despite all his good heart and modest nature, she is almost succeeding. What’s your goal, you foolish girl?_

As he expected, Podrick eyed her with a mixture of outrage and disgust before leaving with a raging pace.

The girl tilted her head in curiosity.  
“How much appreciation for a dead woman.” She said after a few moments, but despite the effort to sound distant, her voice trembled. Tyrion wondered if she was trying to fool herself rather than him.   
“They were together, weren’t they?” She blurted out after a long silence. 

Tyrion watched her in astonishement.  
“Absolutely not! How do you even-?”

“He took everything I said about her a little too personally, for my taste.” She retorted, mistrustful.

“He was her squire, once! They’ve spent many years together in companionship!” 

The absurdity of her assumptions made him want to laugh to tears, but after all she couldn’t know much about the past of the woman knight and her squire.

“This doesn’t mean they weren’t lovers.”- The girl insisted, stubbornly - “She wasn’t so caring with her virtue, am I right? Otherwise I wouldn’t be here! That’s why she wanted to return here every time, then...”

She was becoming frantic, almost delirious with her words, forgetful of his presence. For a moment, he felt like a mere spectator of a pitiful, unpleasant act.

“What... What are you saying?” He asked, careful.

“I’m saying that there was someone here for whom she cared a lot more than me! Someone worth abandoning your own child for, because after all, what kind of meaningful love could I gave her, isn’t it? The love of a bloody man is a thousand times more satisfying than... than this!”  
She growled, stabbing her chest with vigorous fingers.

“Please, please don’t... do that!” - He begged hurriedly - “Listen to me... what Podrick was to her, is...” - Tyrion had to interrupt himself when he realised the weight of what he had in mind. 

_Yes, tell her that Pod was mostly akin to a son to the lady knight. Allow this girl to distort the whole situation until she decides that her mother preferred him as a son rather than her as a daughter. You fool. _

Tyrion shook his head in frustration.  
“... I’m convinced that there was no man here who held her heart, nor her virtue, for that matter. You have my word.” He chose to say, in the end.

That seemed to calm her, at least momentarily.   
She was now looking in the dark waters of the sea, as if in search for a soothing vision.

“How do you know?” She asked then, calm but pained.

_Oh, yes, how do I know?_

“Sometimes people find themselves around a table, with empty flagons and full goblets...” - Tyrion begun - “You often end up spilling some truths. Sometimes they are cheerful. Sometimes they are painful.”  
He breathed in, trying to gather his words cleverly.  
“One time... she confessed me she had a lover... many, many years before, one she could not forget.   
For the best and the worst...” 

The girl didn’t look at him.  
“... And...?”

“...And... I’m afraid I don’t know much about his fate.”

_Liar. _   
_Coward. _   
_He died because of you._   
_Like your mother, your father, your sister, and all of her children. One way or another, you killed them all._

“Whoever he was, if she loved him, I doubt I was his.”  
She said feebly after a while, dragging him out from his self loathing.

Tyrion felt himself scowling deeply.  
“Why would you say that?” he murmured.

She shrugged.   
“You don’t hate a child born from love, I think. Not that I know much about it...” 

_Yet I was the thing in this world my father hated the most. And what a love he held for my mother. _

Once again, her voice came to distract him.  
“I realised it’s not that easy to like me, let alone loving me...” - she said, blankly - “ I guess what I’ve always been lacking was the dignity to accept people’s hate.”

_Well, that makes two of us._

“I doubt Lady Brienne could have any feelings for you that might be remotely associated with hate.”

“I’ve seen something different.”   
She rasped, keeping her gaze on the waters.

Curious how she now seemed an entirely different person from the one having violent outbursts few minutes before.

“Our vision is often blurred by our own demons.” - He said, mindlessly. - “Sometimes we see what we crave for, or what we need. Sometimes we see what we fear, instead. That doesn’t make it real.” 

“Aye, nice words.” She scoffed. “Still, facts are on a different level, aren’t they? You don’t hurt someone to say ‘_I love you _’. You don’t humiliate them, nor leave them.”

A small smile formed on his lips.  
“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who says ‘_I love you _’ either.”

The girl shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“Did you love her?” He dared.

A small, irritated snort followed.  
“Stop making stupid questions!” She snapped, still refusing to look at him.

“It’s not that stupid.”

Her golden mane flew on one side when she turned, showing part of her clenched teeth.  
“Well, I did not!”

“Is that why you crumbled on your knees when I told you about the shipwreck?” Tyrion challenged.

Her fists tightened, while her face became red like a flame. “Don’t you dare use that aganist me!” She growled.

_Ah, here you are again._  
“There’s no shame in pain, nor in loving someone.”

“There is if you’re not loved back!” She countered.

He smiled fondly. “...So you did...” 

If possible, her face became even more flushed.  
“No!...I don’t know!” She barked before showing her back at him like an offended child. 

He could almost find her adorable if only she was a little less frightening. If only for some reason she didn’t remind him so much of his sister, just one twice bigger and more intimidating.

“And what did you come here for?” Tyrion pushed.

He saw her cross her arms over her chest.  
“I’m not discussing this with you.” The girl grumbled.

“You came here to disgrace your mother in front of everyone, didn’t you?”

No answer.

“... Didn’t you?” He rised his voice.

“She disgraced herself a long time ago...” The girl hissed, almost showing him her face. ”And then threated me like it was all my fault.”

He walked towards her with silent steps.  
“... And so, after all she achieved, you wanted to take it all away out of spite, am I right?”

“Not so much of an achievement, if you ask me.” She smiled, now looking to the ground. “Unless standing beside an ungrateful cripple staring in front of you all day is considered the highest prize you can hope for in life. What’s a family in comparison to all that, am I right?” 

He went in front of her, forcing her to face him.   
“Don’t try to sneak away from my question, young girl. That’s what you came here for, didn’t you?”

This time she granted him a look filled with condescendence, one he had learnt to detect in proud, unyelding souls.

“So what if I did?” - she spat - “You don’t know the way she was with me, you don’t know how I’ve been feeling for all my life because of her, or the fact that she didn’t even care to notice it. She deserved what I planned for her, if only...-” 

Her resolve fell down along with silent, traitorous tears she was no more able to contain.

He wasn’t surprised.  
Tyrion had expected to see those streams fall at any moment since he gave her those final, terrible words. She had barely managed to dodge the inevitable a few times during their brief conversations, but he had to acknowledge that she had been tougher than all the women he had met in his life. 

He doubted this could have any value for the girl even if he told her.

“It’s okay...”- He tried to comfort her - “But you need to acknowledge the fact that, although you clearly loved her, you were more than willing to hurt her and humiliate her. As you see, there are many ways to say ‘I love you’, and many of them are not pretty. The worst things we are willing to do, are often done in its name.”

She didn’t try to retort, focused as she was on her poor attempts at hiding her tears with one hand.

“I understand that, you know?”- he continued - “I’ve fought all my life trying to get the love I wanted from my family. I understand the way you want to hurt them, to ruin their happiness as much as they’ve ruined yours. And yet, in the end, you wish you never did what you did, no matter how much they deserved it at the time.” He dared to pull her arm down by the sleeve, hoping to uncover what she was trying to conceal. 

Strangely enough, she allowed it. 

“You may be driven to think that, somehow, their sorrow will bring you joy, yet I can guarantee that you won’t get any satisfaction from the pain of those you wish could love you.” He said in the end. 

She eyed him quickly, grimly.  
“It wasn’t just about that...” He heard her grumbling.

“... What else, then?”

The girl blinked furiously and begun scratching the palm of her left hand, as if an unbearable pricking was tormenting her skin. It was something Tyrion could almost read as embarassement, and maybe it really was.

“I...think... I mean, she would have been sent back home if... if people had known. The king would have been forced to send her away. Who would allow something like that in his Kingsguard? A Lord Commander tarnished by motherhood... as if being a woman wasn’t already compromising enough.” - She stammered, frowning - “We could have been all together again... I think she would have forgiven me... eventually.”

Her voice was now something entirely different from all the bellowing she had been delivering for the most part of their interactions. 

It sounded little and unsure, like a child’s. 

“Once, when she was home more often, things were better...” - she continued - “... Even I was better... before all her neglect.. and the unfulfilled promises... can you believe that?”

Despite those words, Tyrion felt his mouth curving into a smile. “I can, my lady...” He said softly. 

Her head shook almost imperceptibly.   
“How can things get any better, now?” She rasped, mesmerized once again by the sea.

Tyrion glanced at the ruins, all the people gathered in the streets, their homes, dreams and future now shattered. “I wish I could know.” He simply answered.

_I wish I could see what our king saw._

He wondered if this was part of his greater plan, or just an inevitable consequence of all the mistakes he has been unable to admit. 

_Keep the fire going..._  
Bran’s last words had been an other conundrum which brought more questions than answers.

Tyrion watched the girl again, this time finding a lesser sterility about the outcome of the last war.   
Back then, everything felt cold, and barren. Million of lives taken away by greed and dragonfire. Happiness and pursuance brusquely interrupted. 

Now there it stood again, unknowingly. Hope.  
His blood.  
His house.   
His future. 

He wished Jaime had lived long enough to see it too. 


	22. The Bargain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'He was a few steps away from me, hidden in a ship', Alyda realised standing on the quay. Her fists and jaw clenched while the now calm waters carried away the rotting corpse of the one whom used to call himself king.

A small boat was burning near the shores that morning.

Few people were gathered under the innatural sun, the royal crow displayed everywhere during the eulogy dedicated to Bran the Broken. 

_He was a few steps away from me, hidden in a ship_, Alyda realised standing on the quay. Her fists and jaw clenched while the now calm waters carried away the rotting corpse of the one whom used to call himself king.

She wished she had known.  
She wished she had seen him die with the same misery he brought upon her. 

“You’re awake.” A familiar voice said, attracting her attention.  
It never failed to surprise her how such a pitch could belong to such a minuscule man.   
She believed his companion referred to him as ‘Lord Tyrion’.

“So the king is dead...” She muttered, noticing the absence of the pretentious knight soon after. “Is your friend dead too?”

The dwarf blinked, smiling. “No, Podrick went to retrieve something he left behind... actually he might be risking his neck right now. So I should tell you ‘not yet’.” 

“Why didn’t you stop him? What’s so important...?”

The little man shrugged.  
“Ah... it doesn’t matter. If I’m being completely honest, I doubt he will find anything intact, at this point. But he can be a stubborn lad when he wants.”

_Probably it’s about something his Lord Commander gave him._   
_Maybe something actually precious and valuable. _

Alyda squeezed her golden necklace, eyeing him doubtfully. “Who will look after you if the idiot kills himself down some crumbling rock?”

“I’m not a child, young lady. I’ve made it to my late fifties, I think I can manage to live a few more years.” He smirked.

“If you say so...” She shrugged, returning her attention to the sea, no fire now to be seen, if not the stains of dark smoke it left behind. 

“They should have thrown his body to the fishes.” - Alyda added after a long silence - “He didn’t deserve the privilege of a pyre, nor the cleansing of its flame.”

The man walked to her side, his hands clasped behind his back. “No, probably not...”

“And instead she’s somewhere underwater...” Alyda murmured.

The silence which followed somehow unnerved her.

“Do you want to know something curious?” She added then,  
feeling the man’s hesitation.

“...I guess I do.” He claimed after a moment.

“When I turned six, my grandfather gifted me with a doll for my nameday. It had long, blond hair and a golden dress, eyes painted blue and a small fabric sword sewed in its hand.”

A broad grin appeared on the dwarf’s face.  
“Your eyes look more green than blue. I’d think it was made to resemble you, though...” The dwarf assumed.

“It was indeed...” She nodded, looking at her palm. “...Until a few days later I decided to chop off the hair at the nape of the doll’s neck. Then I cut the dress at the knee and tied a thin lace at its middle as a waistband...”

_I shouldn’t be telling this... it’s stupid. And pathetic._

“It didn’t look so much like you after that, I would imagine.”  
He said instead. She could sense the hint of a smile in his voice, but couldn’t decide whether he was mocking her or not.

Alyda shook her head.  
“Septa Dorea was horrified when she saw it. At first my grandfather was quite appalled too, at least until he realised what I truly made of it...” She shrugged.

Oddly enough, he was still smiling.   
“I think it was... sweet of you.”

“Sweet you say?” She retorted, turning to look at him. “In the beginning I used to clutch at that stupid doll as if it was a real thing. But over the years I ended up tugging its hair over and over until it became almost bald, or scratching its eyes until a day one suddenly popped off.” 

The dwarf seemed half amused and half abashed.  
“Well, I guess you were quite upset with someone, then...” he said, soflty “... But still, i’m waiting for the curious part.”

Alyda studied him for a few seconds, suddenly doubtful.  
She wondered if he was already expecting to hear something terrible from her, or if he already saw her like all the others.   
But he was no one, after all.

_In a few days he won’t even remember my words, nor me._   
_If the woman who brought me into this world didn’t, why should him, who’s just a mere stranger? _

Alyda fought back the clenching sensation in her chest with a long breath.

“Upset’ might be an understatement. But one day I was even more so than the usual.” She grunted, sitting on the quay.   
“... I took the bloody doll with me on a trip towards the highest cliff in Tarth, and then I threw it away with all the force I had in my arms.” - Alyda sighed - “I regretted it the moment I saw that thing sinking into the water.”   
The image still stung her like a gelid breeze.  
“I secretly prayed for the waters to bring it back to the shores somehow, ruined, one-eyed and half bald as it was... But they never did. Every morning and evening I went to the edge of the sea looking for it, yet all I could find were rocks and seahells.”

Alyda remembered when, in her dreams, she was able to find it every night on the wet sand, only to see it disappear from her hands the moment she woke up. “Prayers won’t make the waters bring her back this time either.” - She croaked - “They’re both at the bottom of the ocean, now... it’s rather fitting if you think about it...”

Suddenly, the dwarf’s tiny hand clasped her forearm.   
It felt like a child’s.  
“You shouldn’t be thinking about these things.” He said, sounding worried. She couldn’t help but wonder why he cared.

Alyda turned to look at his green eyes.   
“And tell me, what should I be thinking about?” She grimaced.

“The future.” He nodded. “Stop thinking about what you ruined and try to think about things you want to build, what you want to do next.”

She scoffed, looking away from him.  
“I just want to go home now... no matter how late your crow was, it must have reached my grandfather, by now.”

_I hope it wasn’t too much for him. _  
The thought dawned on her like a sudden rainstorm.   
_I must go back at once. _

Lord Tyrion gave her a thin smile.  
“I understand.” He said patting her shoulder. “I’ll help you find a way... do you have any money left for the way back though?”

_No. There’s nothing left..._

“...I think I can do something about that.” 

“Very well... I’ll take care of the rest then... I’ll be waiting here when you’re finished.”

Alyda rose up slowly, feeling like an old woman in pain.  
“Tell me... lord Tyrion.” She said, unsure on whether refer to him with his name. He seemed rather pleased.

“Yes, my lady?”

“Where do I find a merchant?”

Tyrion rose his brows with apparent surprise.  
“If there’s still one standing, you’ll find him following the crowd. Try on what’s left of the main road.”

And so she did.  
As he went towards the people on the docks, Alyda turned on her heels and walked away, a sickening sensation accompanying her during the whole path.   
The journey felt eternal with those slow, short steps, and yet it proved to be far too short. 

But Tyrion was right.  
It didn’t take long before she could spot a consistent crowd gathered not too far away, where a colourful, distinctive man was speaking vehemently.

Alyda decided to wait as long as possible, but when the small group finally left with grim faces, she chose to approach the merchant, a pudgy man with a large belly and a face far too much delighted for her taste.

“Ah, what a wonderful view we have!” The man said when he saw her. “I think I have something here to match such beauty, you know?”

“Wipe that grin off your face!” She snarled, loathing his happy grin. “There’s nothing to be cheerful about.” 

His fake dismay made her want to strike him.

“Why, my dear... these are dark times indeed. They were for me before they were for all these people here. These disasters seems to follow me like an angry dog, but if you ask me, it always helps to see a kind smile on someone’s face to make things better.” 

She snorted with growing irritation.  
“See it they way you want.” Alyda grunted. “I’m not here to purchase your rubbish, anyway. I fear this might make that nice smile of yours a little less wide.”

And so it was.  
“Such rudeness doesn’t agree well with your beauty, my lady. But I guess I might have offended you somehow. Please, accept my apologies.”

Alyda glanced at him begrudgingly before remembering what she came there to do.   
“... I have something I need to sell.” She muttered.

“Oh, I’d be glad to see what you have then.” He grinned.

The abundance of smiling he was giving her was quite unnerving and unfamiliar. Sécile used to tell that unusual smiles could suddenly appear when people wanted something from you. Alyda had always had things people should have wanted from her. And yet no one smiled to her in Tarth. 

Not even mother.  
But grandfather did, from time to time, at least when she wasn’t bringing too much shame upon him through spiteful words and an injurious behaviour.

The thought gave her the strenght to clasp the jewel around her neck. “This one... it’s made of solid gold.”

_Hoping mother didn’t ask for gilded iron. After all, it would have been more suitable for a worthless stone. And a worthless daughter_.

Alyda unlaced the small chain and put the necklace in his hand, unable to drop her eyes from its fake beauty.  
The light was hitting the sapphire’s star-like scar, making it shine similarly to something precious and valuable. In her heart, she found herself hoping it was enough to obtain what she needed for the journey. After all, she didn’t need a thing made only to remind her what she was to the eyes of the most noble soul in Westeros.

_You don’t need this as much as you didn’t need her._

The man was observing the jewel carefully, somehow more focused on the soiled sapphire rather than the supposedly golden beast holding it.

“Interesting...” he said after a while.

“What is?”

“Do you know what this gem is, right?” He asked.

Alyda filled her lungs with a deep breath.  
“...Yes, far too well.” She grumbled. “Is the rest real gold at least?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“...It is, my dear. But the lion head is not a solid block, otherwise it would be too heavy for the neck. As you can see, it’s mostly hollow inside, more of a shell made to contain the stone...”

_Of course. Why am I even surprised.._  
“Just tell me if I can make enough from it!”- She interrupted him - “I need to pay for a ship directed to Tarth.” 

The merchant blinked several times.  
“Yes, if that’s what you want, then it’s enough, I suppose...”

She nodded stiffly.  
“Very well.”

He filled a purse with enough dragons to travel twice the distance, maybe even something more. Yet she still couldn’t take off her gaze from her last nameday’s gift.

_No, it wasn’t a gift, always remember that._   
_It wasn’t made to please you, it was made to disparage you._   
_That’s because she didn’t love you, nor want you._   
_That’s why you won’t miss her._

Reluctantly, the image of their last encounter became once again vivid in her mind. Her mother’s nice, empty words. The look on her face when she took her hand, her first, gentle touch after several years.

_No. Remember what the dwarf said, you idiot._  
_Sometimes we see what we want. We see what we need. _  
_It doesn’t make it real. _  
_What you saw wasn’t real_.

Back then, the gesture might have been unexpected and soft enough to fool her, but now she could remember thousands more actions and words which spoke of other feelings on the woman’s part. 

“So we have a deal, then?”  
The man’s voice startled her. She must have been lost in her thoughts for a while, for the merchant seemed rather embarassed by her prolongued silence.

Alyda looked straight in his eyes, a new determination rising inside her. “Yes... yes we do. Take this thing, I don’t wanna see it anymore.

Before she could see the jewel disappear in his pocket, she took the money and left with a furious pace.  
As she walked towards the docks, Alyda could feel a familiar warmth in her eyes, one she barely managed to fight back in time before she could meet the worried face of Lord Tyrion. 

“Is everything all right my lady?” He frowned.

“....Totally.” She rasped. “Do you have something for me or not?”

His scowl didn’t disappear, but he decided not to say anything about her state. “I... my lady...”

“Alyda...” She interrupted. “If I can use your name you can use mine...”

“Oh...” - He seemed taken aback - “Fair enough then.” 

“So?” She urged.

“I’m afraid I’m not bringing any good news. No ship is sailing from King’s Landing any time soon. Most of them are wrecked, others are quite damaged, or the sailors are simply terrified at the prospect of another imminent disaster. But there might still be a way...”

“Which one?”

“It seems that there’s an untouched, safe harbor near the Neck. They told me that if there are still ships willing to sail, then they’re departing from those shores. It won’t be cheap, though.”

“It doesn’t matter.” - Alyda said quickly - “I’ll get myself an horse somehow, hoping it will last more than my former one.”  
She was determined to leave in that very moment, but she then decided to turn towards the dwarf one last time.  
“Thank you for your help and efforts, Lord Tyrion. They were neither due nor called for, but you have my gratitude nevertheless.”

“Wait!” He said clasping her by the sleeve. “Are you going on your own?”

Alyda glared at him.   
“No, I’m leaving with my rich crew of friends. They’re waiting for me outside the city doors.” - she spat - “What do you think?”

“No, I mean... maybe we should come with you.” 

“‘We’? You and the little man?” - She sneered - “How thoughtful. I think I can do without.”

“Please, my lady, I need to be sure you’re traveling as safely as possible.”

“Why?” - Alyda boomed in sheer exasperation - “Why, why, why do you even care?”

“Your mother was a friend, a dear, true friend. I owe her at least this much. The same goes for Podrick.”

“My mother is dead. You don’t owe her anything, even more so if it’s about me.” She scoffed.

“I’m sorry my lady, but I won’t take a no for an answer.” Tyrion said, giving another of his kind smiles to the unkindest of the girls.

“You know what? Fine. I don’t care.” - She snorted - “Just do not slow me down. I’m already slow enough on my own.”

Suddenly, the dwarf seemed to notice something behind her. Alyda turned instinctively, only to catch a glimpse of the little knight trotting in their direction like a donkey. He had a sac clearly filled with something heavy.

“Guess who’s not died crushing into a crevasse.” Alyda grumbled. The dwarf, though, seemed enthralled. 

“...He actually found it...”

“What? What did he find?” She urged.

Tyrion smiled at her again. “The Book of Brothers, my lady.”


	23. The Long Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time ser Podrick looked at her, really looked at her. His gaze travelled from her face to her neck, then returned to her eyes again. “Your necklace...” The knight begun “...The one you gave away. I’ve seen it before in her chambers...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I don't usually write notes, but I wanted to thank Macy7231 (check her work https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macy7231/pseuds/Macy7231) for her generosity and disposability. She will be checking all the previous chapters too, so I will gradually correct the mistakes I made, all thanks to her kindness and patience with me and this work. Thank you Macy, and thank you all!

Strange thing, companionship.  
Alyda was used to seeing it all the time among squires and boys in the courtyard, laughing with each other with a complicity almost foreign to her. She was used to seeing it among women too; groups of maids and girls giggling and talking about things in which she was never interested.  
Or so she always told to herself.  
  
Alyda could see it between the dwarf and the knight too. There was something that went far beyond the usual interaction among lords and their protectors.  
Usually, she remained behind them on the road, watching their horses walking side by side. They were chatting most of the time, sometimes louder, sometimes just mere whispers.  
  
Alyda was sure the last ones were focused on her.  
Likely to insult her and her attitude, as people always did. They were probably agreeing on how insufferable she was.  
  
Or maybe arranging the next kind lie to feed her with.   
  
_As if I couldn’t handle the truth.  
As if I didn’t figure it out myself, by now._  
  
But then, Alyda rembered the evening she met the two of them.  
  
_Maybe they would consider you strong enough if you had not crumbled to pieces in front of them_, she chided herself.  
The dwarf had been quick to taunt her on the matter, after all, a weapon she herself had armed him with.  
  
_Good thing it didn’t happen in front of the other boys in Tarth, otherwise their laughs would have echoed in my ears for life._  
  
She suddenly wondered if the dwarf had secretely jeered about it with this haughty knight named Podrick.  
  
_And I thought my name was stupid._  
He had a stupid face, stupid cheeks and a stupid wide smile to match it with, but women apparently adored him.  
  
And, in all likelihood, so did one too many.  
  
Her mother’s appearence had been a blind spot to her. So much so that Alyda had never thought about the possibility of a man in her life. But then, it had struck her like a punch in the face.  
As if it wasn’t any more obvious, one evening she even heard Tyrion praising the man’s talent among the sheets while he was speaking to a fine whore in an inn. _‘A magic cock_,' he had, and apparently that was all it took.  
  
She wondered what it took for Brienne of Tarth to open her legs.  
Always stern and unbreachable like a castle’s walls; cold and unforgiving like the open sea. Almost impossible to make her smile. Beyond inconceivable to make her laugh.  
  
But maybe this ser Podrick had been able to reach the impossible. People around this child-faced knight were far too cheerful, especially the several wenches in the few remaining taverns on the road towards the Neck. All it took was one of his dumb smiles and these girls were more than willing to open their thighs for him during the night.  
  
_Yes, maybe that’s what it took..._  
  
“Is everything fine back there?” The dwarf suddenly called from his steed, several steps ahead of her.  
  
_Nothing is fine, you idiot._  
“...Absolutely.”  
  
Tyrion slowed his horse, waiting for hers to catch up.  
“Are you sure? You’ve been silent during these days. I understand the circumstances, but I’m beginning to worry. You’re quite...vocal, usually.”  
  
_Usually. As if you knew me._ “And, to your liking, what should I be more vocal about?” She sneered.  
  
Alyda could see his growing discomfort.  
“My lady... grief is a long, exausting journey. Our thoughts in these moments might not be too... bright.”  
  
“My thoughts are fine!” - she scoffed - “And quite frankly, there’s nothing to be grieving about.”  
  
He blinked several times in surprise.  
“I thought... maybe you wanted to talk about your...”  
  
She inhaled sharply, managing to interrupt him.  
“That woman was the last thing dwelling in my mind until you decided to bring her up.”  
  
The dwarf looked at her frowning.  
“... _‘That woman’_, my lady? She was your mother...”  
  
“She wasn’t one when she was alive, she will be even less from now on.” Alyda hissed, careful to avoid his saddened eyes.

"As you wish my lady...” He sighed.  
She suddenly noticed the knight looking at her with a scowl. Judging. As always.

“Have you something to say, little man?” She challenged.

The man’s scowl deepened, but then he simply trotted away with an annoyed look.

_Arrogant fool._

In a few ours, she would never have to see his face again.  
And yet, there was another one Alyda knew she still had to deal with. One carrying two old, severe, unyelding blue eyes.

_What am I going to tell him?_  
Maybe she shouldn’t mention the reasons behind her departure._ I might come up with a decent lie before I arrive._

Given the circumstances, Alyda found herself doubting her grandfather would be concerned with her motivations at all.

_I shall take care of him... his illness might worsen... he might..._

She spurred her steed vigorously, ending up between the other two horses, pushing the knight’s slightly away. Accidentally.

“Watch it!” He protested.

“Shut it!” Alyda grunted at him before adressing the dwarf. “We must speed up the pace, gentlemen.”

“Why?” Tyrion frowned.

“Because I say so!” She growled. “Otherwise I’m going on my own. How much farther is this bloody harbor?”

“We’ll reach the place by nightfall, I suppose...”

“We’ll reach it far sooner than that.” She claimed, determined to take the lead. The dwarf shrugged and looked at the knight, who didn’t seem too much disgruntled.

“The sooner we arrive, the better.” Ser Podrick muttered.  
He wasn’t even finished talking when she decided to shake the horse’s reins and rush forward.

Once Alyda could hear their hooves right behind her, she quickened the rhythm even more.

_Keep the eyes on the road. Always on the road._

She didn’t know how much time they went on like that, but at some point her own breath became too short, and the light far too dim.  
That’s when Alyda could finally spot something resembling life near the coast.

“Is it the place?” She stopped, pointing down. After a few moments, the other two joined her with a laboured breath and soaked hairlocks on their foreheads.

“I... I guess so my lady.” The dwarf panted. “Can we slow down a bit, please?”

“Idiocy, plain and simple. We’re almost there, why should we slow down?”

The knight stepped forward, puffing through his nose.  
“Because he’s bloody tired, you self-absorbed loggerhead...-”

“Pod!” - Tyrion interrupted him - “It’s fine, really. I’m fine...”

Alyda observed the dwarf, his short arms and legs, his little jaded body and disheveled hair. In that moment she realised the amount of exertion and strain he had just endured because of her. She glanced at ser Podrick’s accusatory stare and, with something resembling shame, Alyda turned again to speak to lord Tyrion.

“My apologies... I didn’t realise...” Alyda grumbled, half embarassed. “...Lead on, I’ll follow.”

“There’s no need, girl...” He smiled kindly. “My friend here is just being unusually attentive... and also rude, apparently...”

“M’ Lord?” The knight glared, but the dwarf dismissed him quickly with a wave of his hand.

“Come on, let’s seek some information about your ship.” Tyrion nodded. “Let’s begin by following those small lights down there, I guess.”

She decided to take things a little more slowly, despite her impatience and worry.

The main road and streets were almost deserted, but she couldn’t tell if it was because of the time or the recent events.  
Alyda could find more relief only in the first option. 

Despite the hell which had raged on those lands, it seemed that some people was still living near the shores, though their faces didn’t speak of amicability nor openness.

“I think we should try with that one” Tyrion decided, aiming towards an old man with a ruined, damp hat. “I’ll speak. We don’t want to lose a potential friend with the first sentence, do we?” He said glancing at her with a reproving look.

Alyda eyed him begrudgingly, but didn’t retort.

She watched him head towards the old man, likely a fisher, while she decided to remain back with the pouty knight.

It didn’t take long before boredom took over her.

“Did you hear the dwarf?” Alyda sneered, tilting her head. He answered with questioning eyes and a frown.  
“You’re rude.” She grinned. “You’re a rude, unchivalrous knight, wearing a rudimental armor and a bad attitude.”

The man scoffed, but didn’t fight back.  
She didn’t like that.

“Your beloved Lord Commander would be ashamed of you, you know?” Alyda pushed “She didn’t approve such behaviour, I can assure you. But I guess she never got to see you acting like this...” She said, giving him a knowing, malicious smirk. “Curious how sometimes all it takes is one, insignificant person to bring out what you really are, isn’t it?”

Still, he wasn’t giving the courtesy of his attention.

“That’s a talent that I have.” She insisted, then “I easily bring out what people try to hide behind; fake kindness and fine manners. Suddenly, they all become strangers, but no one ever believes me when they do.” 

This time, Alyda clasped his upper arm, forcing him to face her. “Those who know them would claim those people are far too decent to actually have said what I heard them say, or always too kind and generous to act the way I’ve seen them act.” She grimaced. “But this time, someone heard you at least... someone saw you. Maybe you didn’t show much, but you’re no longer the perfect knight my mother and the dwarf thought of you. And I’m not crazy when I say that you’re a little man.”

He sighed loudly, closing his eyes in utter annoyance.  
“Bringing out the worst in people is not a talent, my lady.”

“And yet it’s not my fault if the worst was there anyway. Am I right?” She taunted, whispering. “That’s all your merit.”

This time ser Podrick looked at her, really looked at her. His gaze travelled from her face to her neck, then returned to her eyes again. “Your necklace...” The knight begun “...The one you gave away. I’ve seen it before in her chambers...”

_In her chambers._

Those weren’t the words she was expecting.  
“...So?”

“I didn’t know who it was meant for at the time... But she had it made for you, didn't she?”

It sounded like an accusation.  
“Of course she did!” Alyda spat with a piercing look and a wide, poisonous smile. “With all the love and pride she had for me badly hidden in it.”

Naturally, he didn’t seem surprised.  
“The king didn’t allow her to leave, that time... Did you know that?” He said, after a moment.  
  
A small, throaty laugh escaped her.  
“I’ve been hearing that pretense for my entire life, now.”

“It wasn’t a pretense!” He uttered a little to much passionately.

“She had better things to do elsewhere.” Alyda said, glaring at him from head to toe. “With you.”

He stomped one foot in frustration.  
“Seven Hells! She was leaving the Kingsguard! Can you at least understand that?” The knight hissed with wide eyes.

Alyda was momentarily left agape.

“... Lies.” She muttered after a while.

“She was going back to Tarth! And this time, she was meant to remain there!” He insisted.

“Lies!” Alyda growled.

_This can’t be true. This must not be true._

“She left everything for you,” Ser Podrick hounded. “I knew I would hardly see her again while she was boarding her ship, but not like this... Not like this.” He grumbled, visibly pained. 

“I won’t hear anymore of this!” She barked “I know what you’re trying to do!”

He seemed rather baffled and confused, but she didn’t care to listen another word from his deceitful mouth.

_He just want me to feel sorry for her.  
He just wants to see me cry over a woman who most likely held more love for her sword than her own child._

Alyda decided to walk away, but as she did so, she noticed lord Tyrion standing not too far away. Alone.

She approached him, unavoidably wondering how long ago he had finished talking with the fisherman.  
Yet, there was a strange look on the dwarf’s face, one she couldn’t identify. Somehow, it made her nervous.

“So?” Alyda urged. “What did he say?”

He held her gaze for a few seconds before looking at his small feet. “I don’t... I don’t think we will be able to sail, my lady...”

Her eyes squinted and her jaw clenched.  
“So it wasn’t my overwhelming presence that made your negotiation fail, after all.” 

He lifted his head again, a glum expression on his face.  
“... I’m sorry my lady...-”

“I might not sail tonight, but I will tomorrow.” She interrupted.

But his look didn’t change.

“...Am I?” Alyda asked hesitant, troubled by his silence.

After what felt like eternity, he shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No... Not even those which will follow.”

She felt dazed and somewhat appalled.  
“What do you mean, dwarf?” Alyda blurted with a menacing half cackle.

“...I’m so...so sorry... I...” He tried, half distressed, half fearful.

“Sorry about what?” She shouted, slamming her fist on the side of her own thigh. “What the hell did he tell you?”

Immediately, the knight rushed to put himself between her and the dwarf, a wary, yet resolute look on his stupid face.

Alyda watched both of them carefully.  
The knight was prepared for a fight, but the tiny man at his side was clearly more than worried.  
He was scared. Of her.

“What did you do?” She hissed, trying with a calmer tone, one she likely failed to achieve.

The dwarf stepped forward from behind his shield of flesh and armor, something she found herself respecting him for.  
“The fisherman... I tried to....” Tyrion stammered, seemingly trying to gather some kind of courage. “... But he told me that... the Stormlands...” he breathed, shaking his curly head.

She could feel her mouth hanging open, and a sudden anguish quickly taking over her.

“Say it!” Alyda finally yelled, already on the verge of tears.  
Yet somehow, she felt she knew the answer.

The dwarf looked at her with big, sad eyes one last time before approaching, taking her hand in his.  
“They’re gone my lady...” He said with a broken voice, while a boulder fell unrelenting and merciless on her body.   
“The Stormlands are gone.”


	24. Nothing And No One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe she never left Tarth, and had drowned with all the others islanders instead.  
Maybe her ship never reached Storm’s End, and sank in the sea along with her mother’s. 
> 
> 'But can you feel so much pain in death?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone :)  
Once again, thanks to Macy7231 for her help and support

The few days that followed had no depth, and no time.  
Each moment flew like a river’s water, and only the dimming light could allow her mind to aknowledge the coming of the evening.

The dwarf and his companion had been with her most of the time, and yet too far away. She could barely hear their words whenever they tried to speak to her, or even just detect their presence in the same room or at the same table.  
Sounds, tastes and thoughts were dull and muffled, as if she was living under water.

And maybe she was. 

Maybe none of that had really happened.  
Maybe she wasn’t sitting in some forgotten inn in the Neck.  
Maybe she never left Tarth, and had drowned with all the others islanders instead.  
Maybe her ship never reached Storm’s End, and sank in the sea along with her mother’s. 

_But can you feel so much pain in death?_

“My lady?”   
A tiny hand on her shoulder forced her out from her thoughts, leading her attention to the small man on her left.  
Lord Tyrion tried once again to offer her a plate with some food, stubbornly refusing to leave her to starvation.

Alyda removed his hand as kindly as her restrained rage and sorrow allowed, and turned away from him. After a moment, she heard the sound of his feet moving in front of her. 

“My lady, you’ve barely eaten these days and we’re not living in the best conditions. If you don’t keep your strength up..-.”

“...Leave...” Alyda breathed with fading tolerance.  
As she did so, she sensed ser Podrick’s movements from the other side of their table. That was the praxis.  
Whenever the dwarf spoke to her, or even just stood near her, the knight stared at them, always alert, ready to intervene, as if he was expecting her to tear the small man to pieces at any moment.

She hated it. And she hated him, because of it.

“Pod, it’s fine... I’ve handled worse,” The dwarf claimed, calm. 

The knight kept a worried frown on his face, but then decided to sit down nearby, like a watchdog.

Despite the growing irritation owed to the man’s attitude towards her, Alyda felt hardly the strength to fight him in that moment, nor a reason to do so. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes, feeling her head spinning.

Alyda flinched in surprise at the sudden touch of the dwarf’s cold hand on her forehead.

“Your breath is like fire,” He said before she could protest in any way. “You’re burning, stubborn girl.” 

“Don’t... touch me!” She hissed, slapping his hand away.

The dwarf gave a severe scowl.  
“We have to treat your fever, or it will get worse.”

“I don’t care!” She snarled.

He briefly turned towards his companion, gesturing for him to stay where he was.

_What a good dog._

“Please, my lady...” He tried again, but that word became a spark amidst caches of wildifre.

“Stop calling me a bloody lady!” - She shouted, on the verge of tears - “I’m no lady of any fucking thing, now! I’m nothing to anyone, and even less for the two of you! Just leave me the fuck alone!”

Alyda stood up quickly, and regretted it immediately. Her head spun again, ten times worse than before. After a few moments, she lost her balance.   
A strong hand grasped her upper arm before she could hit the ground, while a shoulder pressed against her chest, pushing her up. When her eyes could focus again, she saw the plump cheeks and dark hair of Ser Podrick at few inches from her face. His espression contorted in the attempt of keeping her from falling. 

“Can you hold her up?” She heard lord Tyrion’s worried voice.

“Barely,” The knight answered, gritting his teeth in his struggle.

Alyda pushed with her feet and managed to regain her balance and her composure, as precarious as it was.

“Please, allow us to take you upstairs,” the dwarf pleaded “You can barely stand on your own.”

Septa Sècile’s voice suddenly echoed in her mind.  
Alyda could recall her words about men and their lust.   
She could remember also the way she used to speak about her beauty, the only thing which could make her presence barely tolerable for a man. The only thing that could make her somewhat desirable.

And yet, these two men could have tried something at any moment on the road before, she imagined.

_But you could smash both of their heads, back then, and they knew it. What can you do now in such pitiful state? _

“I will not lay unconscious in a bed alone while two men can watch me and do anything they want,” She barked, outraged “I’m not that stupid...”

“No, you’re the kind of stupid who’d rather fall and hit her head just because she needed to take a piss!” The dwarf retorted with far too much vehemence and offence. 

She should have felt insulted, Alyda supposed, but in the end she realised she really didn’t care.   
She didn’t care what bad could befall her at this point, and whatever that could be, it would be hardly undeserved. 

_This is all happening because of me. This is all a punishment for all the harm I caused, and for that I intended to inflict._

She could have hardly avoided whatever retribution fate had in reserve for her, Alyda decided.   
At best, she might have succeeded in delaying it.   
At worst, someone else would have paid for her attempts.

So, in the end, she surrendered.  
“Do your worst, then.” 

She allowed the two men to drag her up the inn’s stairs, and eventually, to her bed. Alyda expected the knight to almost drop her on the mattress like some bag of rags, but he was instead treating her with delicacy, maybe even too much so. 

The moment she was steady on her bed, Alyda promptly pushed the man away. “You’ve done your knightly part, now,” She spat “You can leave.” 

He rolled his eyes and turned to walk out, but the dwarf didn’t have the same idea.

“He won’t,” Lord Tyrion said, grabbing the man’s wirst.

“What did you say?” She growled, half dazed.

“You heard me right. I’m going to look for someone even vaguely resembling an healer. I hope to find one before sundown. I’m not leaving you here alone in such conditions.”

A hoarse laugh escaped mouth, causing her head to pulse relentlessly. “I don’t need this haughty dog to look at me while I sleep. I might snore in the wrong way and he would feel threatened enough to draw his sword,” she mocked.

The knight gave her an annoyed scowl, which caused her to snicker endlessly. The two men could only look at each other like they were dealing with a madwoman.

“I’d better go,” The dwarf grumbled in a worried tone.

“Lord Tyrion!” The knight called, following him to the door. The two exchanged a few words, but she could hear none of them. What she could see clearly, though, was the man’s dejection at the prospect of spending hours in her company.   
She had seen it so many times on people’s faces that she could sense it with closed eyes, by now.

“Be careful m’lord,” Alyda heard ser Podrick say in the end, right before closing the door behind him.

When he finally turned towards her, she gave him a spiteful smile, one Alyda had been mastering for years in the training yard, the best shield against unwilling partners.

“Oh, oh my... You have to stay with me now...” She said, feeling her lids growing heavy.   
“I’m almost sorry for you, you know.”

Whether he answered her taunt or not, her eyes closed before she could hear. 

And then, finally, along with darkness, came peace.


	25. Her Remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Podrick couldn’t help but search for his lady knight in her traits, but they seemed so scarce they were almost invisible.
> 
> 'Something in her eyes, definitely.  
In the tip of her nose.  
Perhaps a bit in her lips.'
> 
> Nothing more.  
Nor in her face, and even less in her spirit.

The water drenching the cloth felt cold as ice, yet it didn’t matter how many times Podrick could damp the girl’s forehead with it, Alyda’s body kept burning like a pyre.  
  
He couldn’t help but wonder in worry where lord Tyrion was.  
Podrick had been anxious at his intention to leave the place by himself, but lord Tyrion had promptly stressed his obvious inadequacy at sustaining the girl’s body, if needed.  
  
Podrick couldn’t blame him.  
Alyda was sturdy and heavy enough to make him struggle on his own legs. _What could a small man like Tyrion possibly do?_  
  
He sighed in apprehension.  
The waiting was the worst part about anything, and he knew his lady would have agreed.  
  
_Lady Brienne_. The thought stabbed him in the chest like a knife.  
  
It was far too easy to think about her, no matter how he tried.  
To make matters worse, after a couple of months it still hurt like it had just happened. It wasn’t fair, it simply wasn’t.  
  
He had cried like a desperate child the evening they got the tragic report, and it didn’t hurt any less when he saw the girl doing the same, cowered in dirt and mud.  
  
Suddenly he heard her stirring behind him. Again.  
  
She didn’t wake up this time either, but she kept fidgeting and mumbling randomly. He had to listen closely to realise that she was calling for **_her_**.

Something stung him in the chest, then.  
She needed rest, he knew, but her anguish led him to put a hand on her shoulder. He squeezed it for a few moments, until her body finally relaxed. The girl’s face became peaceful, something he had not seen once since the first day he met her.  
  
And suddenly, he saw her beauty.  
  
Her long, golden hair was splayed on the cushion like sunrays, her squared jaw and sharp cheekbones were now softened by feminine, pronounced lids and eyelashes, something he never noticed under her everlasting frowns. Even her mouth was quite beautiful when it wasn’t twisted by a malicious sneer or an angry grimace.  
  
_Or by the poison in her words._  
  
Yet he knew that, as soon as she woke up, such gentle illusion would have vanished along with her slumber.  
  
But lord Tyrion was right.  
The more he looked at her face, the more he could see the Lannister’s golden son in it.  
Podrick couldn’t help but search for his lady knight in her traits, but they seemed so scarce they were almost invisible.  
  
_Something in her eyes, definitely.  
In the tip of her nose.  
Perhaps a bit in her lips.  
_  
Nothing more.  
Nor in her face, and even less in her spirit.  
He wondered how a creature like Brienne of Tarth could have made something so malevolent and wrathful.  
  
_But, after all, she didn’t spend so much time with her, did she?_  
  
All of a sudden, her eyes opened.  
  
Alyda looked at the ceiling for a moment, and then, after a few seconds, she found him. Her gaze was ureadable, stern and severe, yet somewhat sad. The girl stared at him for a long time, unblinking, until he didn’t decide to break that silence.  
  
“How are you feeling?”  
The moment he asked, her expression became ice.  
  
“As if you cared,” She rasped, her throat dry.  
  
Podrick sighed and went to pick the water pitcher. He poured its content into a goblet, but her wary eyes didn’t leave him for a moment. When he finally tried to handle her the filled cup, the girl brusquely pushed his hand aside and went to grab the pitcher he left on the bedside table.  
She brought it to her mouth and drank greedly, dropping a good amount of water on both her tunic and bed sheets.  
  
He could only shake his head in defeat.  
“Are you hungry?”  
  
She glanced at him condescendingly, then snorted and turned on her side, giving him her back.  
  


_I guess it’s a ‘no’. _

Podrick turned on his heels and went to sit at the small table in the chamber’s corner, determined to ignore her for as long as his good sense allowed. He unfastened his sheat and, without giving too much thought, he drew his sword with the intent of sharpening its blade.

He immediately sensed her alertness, but a he took his whetstone and begun stroking the weapon’s plate nevertheless.   
It didn’t take long before she decided to complain.

  
“Stop it!” she growled, furious “My head is already hurting enough without all of that bloody noise!”

Podrick glared at her in frustration, but decided not to fuel her belligerency. He threw the whetstone aside in resignation, sighing at the prospect of hours spent doing nothing but staring at the window.

He soon realised she had other plans.

“You’re the cause of everything, aren’t you?” she whispered sharply, eyes squinting “A bloody man... with a '_magic cock_'...”  
The girl was now staring at him with something akin to defiance, no matter how much the fever was dulling her strengths.

_Please, not this again._  
He closed his eyes, trying to keep his composure.

“You’re not thinking clearly, m’lady.”

“Because I’m just a delirious lunatic, am I?” she spat “I’ll tell you something, gallant knight... I can put things together pretty easily, no matter how much people try to deny the evidence. I made the mistake of believing their nicer truths before, yet in the end my instincts turned out to be reliable most of the time.”

He breathed deeply, fighting against his growing irritation.  
“I don’t know what kind of misfortune you had to deal with before, m’lady, but I assure you this is not-”

“Did you leave her for another woman?” she interrupted him, deaf to his words, “Or did you simply grow tired of her?”

_By the gods, she’s lost her sanity._

“My lady, you’re tired and in pain. The fever is -”

“You said she left the Kingsguard by her own will...” Alyda cut him again, “This means she must have lost what was keeping her there. Why return home otherwise?”

Podrick watched her in astonishment.  
“...For you?” He simply answered.

He had never heard a laugh as baneful as the one which left her mouth in that moment, but soon it was replaced by something more similar to a grimace of pain. He noticed a subtle glisten touching the sides her eyes.

“I don’t know if you and the dwarf are trying to fool me or if you’re just a couple of idiots...” She hissed.

“Is that so unconceivable to you?” He dared.

Alyda glared at him in outrage.  
“Had she ever cared about me, had I ever been her priority, then she would have left the Kingsguard seventeen years ago,” the girl whispered with a trembling, raging voice “Trust me, if she decided to come back, it wasn’t for my sake. It never was.”

Podrick wondered what kind of woman Alyda had known.  
Any living soul which ever met Brienne of Tarth could have seen nothing but chivalry, kindness and goodness.

And yet this girl in front of him spoke of a cold hearted monster.

“...My lady...”

“Alyda!” she snarled “Just use the bloody name, it’s not that hard!”

“As you wish...” he tried again, patient “Alyda, I don’t know why she left you, as much as I don’t know what allowed her to return. What I can tell you is... she was never happy in King’s Landing.”

The girl eyed him for a moment, mistrustful, but then she quickly averted her gaze. “Good.”

“You don’t believe me,” He frowned.

“Do you think she was any happier at home?” she retorted, grimacing “Her already inexistent smiles disappeared whenever she saw me, but I gather I’ve always been the bane for anyone’s happiness and mood. It’s one of the many talents I possess.” 

Podrick watched her with curiosity. _Talent. That word again._  
“She seemed happier whenever she was about to go back to Tarth, though,” He argued.

“You said that right. To Tarth, not to me,” Alyda snapped “A few days spent in my company and she would gladly come back to the place you claim she loathed so much. But maybe your ‘_company_’ made everything far more bearable, eh?” she spat.

“With all the respect, you’re twisting my words and the whole situation,” he tried reasoning “You’re right, I had a deep affection for lady Brienne, but its nature wasn’t too much different from the one you held, yourself.”

Once again, she begun snickering through clenched teeth. It was terribly unsettling to see, and even more uncomfortable to hear.

“So is that what it was? A tender ‘_mother and son_’ thing?” she scorned then, staring at the ceiling.

Something in her voice made him nervous. 

“She... taught me a lot, if not everything. I owe to her what I’ve become.”

Podrick knew he had stepped into fire the moment the words left his mouth. Alyda went silent for a while, and worringly so, for he could feel a cauldron boiling inside her. He heard her breath gradually quickening, and noticed her fingers digging more and more into the mattress.  
When she finally decided to cock her head in his direction, her stare was unrelenting and filled with resentment.

“... And tell me, ser Podrick,” the girl begun, caustic and contemptuous, “What did she teach you?”

He tensed in anticipation.  
It wasn’t something new he felt whenever he was dealing with her, but it didn’t make it any less powerful. He could hardly remember of having ever met someone so young and yet so threatening, even without a sword in hand.

_And what could she possibly do now, in such conditions?_

She was weak and feverish, hardly able to stand, and yet the look she was giving made him feel in tangible danger. What he was actually fearing, though, Podrick wasn’t able to tell.

_There’s nothing I can say that she isn’t going to distort and challenge in the worst way. She’s decided to hear and see the worst in everything she faces, and that’s the only truth she’s being willing to accept._

Podrick knew that the only easy way out was silence, but the girl wasn’t willing to allow him such privilege.

“Did she teach you how to use that whetstone?” She pressed, her voice as cold as winter.

He decided to give her a curt nod, shifting uncomfortably on his seat.

“Did she teach you how to use that pretty sword too?” Still, not a blink.

“Aye, she did...” he mumbled, almost sheepishly.

Her eyes darted from his head to toe.  
“Your training must have been rather intense if you ended up in that fancy golden armor of yours. Hours, at least.... every day.”

He glanced at the ground, shrugging.

“ You were her squire. She knighted you as well, didn’t she?”

It felt like an accusation.

“Yes, m’lady...”

Alyda was now staring at him with blazing torches instead of ice, her breathing slow and deep, akin to a strained, furious bull's.

“You must have made her very proud, then. Before I met you I couldn’t even picture someone worthy of her blessing and approval. But now here you are, in all your glory,” She sneered in disdain.

“My... I mean, Alyda... I think you should get some rest now...” he tried to deflect, but she didn’t yield.

“Do you want to know who taught me, instead, Ser Podrick?”

His name always sounded like something distasteful on her tongue.

He unwillingly met her face, knowing the girl wouldn’t have taken a ‘no’ for an answer, and to be fair, he was sure she wasn’t actually asking for his permission. At least, she seemed to be considering his silence as an acceptable reply. Her gaze finally abandoned his, green eyes now searching aimlessly towards the opposite wall. 

  
“The first face I remember was septa Hedel, if I recall her name correctly. I think she taught me how to walk. She died so soon that I can hardly remember,” Alyda begun, grimly. “Septa Dorea taught me how to clean and dress myself, and after she left, it was the turn of septa Myrine, who was there the first time I bled...” She grimaced.“And finally came Septa Sècile, who taught me the most about how this fine world we live in actually works. Wise, detestable woman...” the girl smiled blankly.

Podrick felt himself growing anxious at those words, and somehow hoped she didn't notice.

“Ser Reynald showed me how to ride my first horse, but the many tumbles which followed taught me how to do that properly...”

He felt a small smile forming on his lips, one he tried to hide with all his strength. He couldn’t help but remember the frustration on lady Brienne’s face the first time they rode together on the Kingsroad. And those which came after that.

_She had ensured to make me a decent rider within a few months, _he thought, fondly.

“Ser Joren was the one my loving mother decided to take as my swordmaster, while she was busy keeping hers in its own scabbard,” Alyda continued, her voice always cold and distant, “He stayed for an year and a half before a better wage and an easier student could allure him away.”

Her mouth twisted as if she had just tasted the most bitter flavour on her tongue.  
“Then it came to master Edward, but he left after I wounded him during a fight...” 

It wasn't surprising to hear.  
“What happened?” 

She exhaled deeply through her nose, sounding more resigned than annoyed.

“I was thirteen. It was the second nameday in a row that my mother couldn’t attend, and one of the boys in the courtyard decided to pick on me at the wrong time.”

He somehow doubted it would take much bad luck to catch one of those moments.

“Master Edward intervened to stop us, and I accidentally hit his eye,” she resumed, sullen, “I’ve never meant to hurt him, but no apology could convince him to stay in Tarth a day more than necessary. After that, I didn’t touch a sword for months. That was until one day Ser Gerold showed up at our doors, poor, scarred and strong as he was, both in body and spirit.”

It might have been just his mere imagination, yet Podrick could almost see a trace of affection in her eyes. He was quick to remind himself that, what she was telling him, wasn’t a tale of fond memories.

“What happened with him?” He dared to ask.

Alyda gave him a quick glance before returning her attention to the wall. She went silent for a long time before deciding to speak further.

“Sécile used to tell me that servants didn’t care about their lords and ladies, that they wouldn’t spend a second more than necessary in our company if it wasn’t for the money we filled their purses with,” the girl shook her head almost indiscernibly, “I should have listened to her... I should have remembered.”

He frowned in apprehension, but waited patiently for her next words. She seemed to be pondering on them carefully, as if she wasn’t too certain on whether voicing them or not.

“After a few years I used to think about Gerold as a guide,” she decided to say, in the end, “One who didn’t want to run away when the first opportunity came. Swordfighting was the one thing I was really good at. I thought that he, at least, could somehow be happy about me, maybe even proud. But in the end, he was needed elsewhere, just like all the others who came before him. Just like your beloved Lord Commander.”

It was then that she decided to look at him again, anger and contempt replaced by grief and dejection. Podrick found himself wanting to comfort her somehow, no matter how meaningless his words could sound to her heart.

“You must believe me when I say that lady Brienne wasn’t the person you think she was," he tried again, "You might have known her little, but I didn't. I’m ready to put my own life at stake when I claim that she would have gladly forsaken anything she held dear to be with you. I believe with my whole being that everything she did was for your sake, and for love. She came back for you, I have no-”

“Don’t say that! Stop fucking say that!” She shouted.

He winced at her abrupt, loud tone, but then he realised with huge surprise that a few droplets were escaping her eyes. 

And suddenly, he understood.

Podrick watched her apprehensively, worried now about her reaction than he ever was before.

“... What happened is not your fault...” he said carefully, hoping with all his heart to soothe her. Instead, it only fed those few drops until they became unrelenting streams.

“She should have not given a shit, like she always did!” Alyda growled through choking tears “She should have remained here, with her wretched King, and she would still be alive!”

The girl was panting loudly and miserably, trying with all her strengths to strain the flood.

“It wasn’t your fault...” he repeated, softly. Vainly.  
He could clearly see she didn’t believe him, but this time Alyda didn’t bother to fight back, nor even care to look at him.  
After a while she simply closed her eyes in exhaustion, her breathing gradually becoming slower and slower, until she went back to her slumber like a child lulled by fading sobs.

Podrick found himself hoping that, at least in her dreams, she could find some peace.

That, at least in her dreams, she could finally find her.


	26. What Comes After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'His heart belonged to your lady knight, but his duty always belonged to the family, to the the crown he was sworn to. And, yet, he’s still the Kingslayer, and traitor to the Starks.'
> 
> But of course, the truth the two of them knew meant nothing compared to what people wanted to believe.
> 
> 'Jaime knew this far too well.'

* * *

The unnerving presence of the unnatural sun had become almost impalpable to Tyrion.

The light was changing, dimming, so much so that the end of the night wasn’t able to give as much relief as it once did.   
It felt like an impending Winter, but somehow his worry for the girl's conditions made it easier to forget about it.

Alyda’s bag had been essential for the healer’s payment, the only purpose left for all the money she had managed to gather. After a week, her body was finally healing, yet his relief was far from solid when it came about her state of mind. Once the fever had at long last left her, Alyda’s constant rambling and delirium left room only to an unsettling silence and an empty stare.   
Tyrion found himself missing her outbursts and belligerency, no matter the terrible words she was able to spit out in those occasions. 

Anything was better than the corpse she was slowly turning into.

_Keep the fire going. But how_, he wondered.   
There was no more fuel to keep her flame alive, apparently, and he wasn’t sure the two of them could do something tangible about it. They were nothing meaningful to her.

But eventually, something else became ineluctably troubling.  
The healer, the rent and their food had quickly halved Alyda’s purse, the only sustain still left for the three of them.

_In less than a week, there would be nothing left_, Tyrion soon realised. 

He glanced at Podrik's prone figure, now busy managing the room's fireplace. “Pod,” he called softly, hoping not to wake the girl up, “We need to talk.”

The man's eyes were filled with unusual uncertainty. “Of course m’lord,” he blinked.

“Not here,” Tyrion whispered, glancing at Alyda’s sleeping form. The knight nodded and quickly followed him outdoors, a cold breeze welcoming them despite the supposedly nearing summer, something peculiar to say the least.

“We can’t stay here much longer,” Tyrion breathed. The look Podrick gave him was telling the same thing. “She’s shutting down. We need a proper man to take care of this... A maester at the very least, if that’s even enough.”

“I know my lord,” he mumbled, worried. “But how? Everywhere it’s chaos. We don’t know which cities are still standing, nor those which had fallen.”

Tyrion considered for a moment their options, but none of them could give any long term solution. All but one.

“Most of the cities facing the sea have likely been devastated,” he assumed “So it would be quite a gamble for us if we decided to go anywhere near it for a safe haven. The best option is the inner area.”

“And then what?” Podrick muttered, anguished “It doesn’t solve the problem anyway. We still don’t have the assurance of a maester, nor a place to stay or pay for.”

“It depends...” Tyrion pondered “We might have still some friends left.”

“My lord?” the knight frowned.

“Every great house has a maester, Pod. There might be one sturdy enough to resist, one which has been standing for millenia, now. One still willing to help us.”

Suddenly, the man widened his eyes.  
“Winterfell?”

“Indeed,” Tyrion nodded. It was clear Podrick wasn't so eager about it. 

“Are... Are you sure this is a good idea?” the knight questioned.

That wasn’t uncalled for.  
He himself had been quite unsure about the possible outcomes of Alyda’s presence among the Starks.   
The people in Winterfell might have been easy to fool about his niece’s heritage, but he knew Sansa wasn’t among them.   
A quick look at the golden girl would be more revealing to her than a thousands lies and, after all, any attempt at deception wouldn’t be the best approach, in their position. 

“What we need now is someone able to help her. That’s the only good idea I can come up with,” he argued.

“But... If queen Sansa found out about-”

“Sansa will be well aware the moment she sees the girl, I can assure you,” Tyrion interrupted, but the man remained disconcerted. 

“Your brother’s sense of honor towards your sister came with a price," Podrick argued. "You know what people think. Do you think Sansa will be willing to risk her own status by helping the daughter of a reknown traitor?” 

_Traitor. His heart belonged to your lady knight, but his duty always belonged to the family, to the the crown he was sworn to. And, yet, he’s still the Kingslayer, and traitor to the Starks. _

But of course, the truth the two of them knew meant nothing compared to what people wanted to believe.

_Jaime knew this far too well._

“No, Pod," Tyrion answered then, resolute "I think Sansa will be willing to help the heir of the woman who saved her life and watched over her for years... And besides, the girl might be someone else’s daughter, but she’s still my niece. Sansa and mine might have not been the longest nor the most remarkable among all marriages, but I’ve done my best to be decent and understanding towards her twenty years ago. She might be willing to return the favour now.”

To his own frustration, Tyrion could see how Podrick was once again mulling over irreprensible thoughts.  
“M’lord...” he swallowed, “we’ve never really considered the possibility of letting Alyda... know...” He stammered. 

_A possibility. Or rather, a contingency._

It had been the biggest and yet unspoken issue between them, an eventuality he had been soon worried to face. He had always believed Podrick had felt the same, given the circumstances, and he had been glad about his reluctance to adress the subject. But now, Tyrion could see something had changed his mind.

"Pod...” Tyrion begun, shaking his head, “If both her mother and grandfather didn’t tell her, what right do we have to do otherwise?" he whispered, as if worried the trees could hear. "I strongly doubt they omitted it out of cruelty, so there must be a reason we're oblivious about.”

_Or at least I hope so._

“But m’lord," he blushed "If we’re bring her to Winterfell... I mean, that’s where my lady and Ser Jaime... where they...”

“I know Pod, I know,” he blurted, trying to cut off his stutter. It was in vain.

“All it takes is someone who saw things, someone who still remembers, or a rumor,” the knight persisted. “The war of the five kings showed us how these kind of truths are not a of a kind that remains hidden for long, even more so if a famous Lannister is accompanying her among the wolves...”

“What do you want me to do?!” Tyrion snapped.

The knight's gaze looked more resigned than troubled, now.

“Sooner or later, I think she’ll find out. It would be better if the truth came from us rather than a stranger's mouth. After all, would it hurt so much if lady Alyda knew she hasn’t been left alone in this world?”

Tyrion watched him intently, almost dismayed.  
“And what would also come with that notion?”

The knight frowned, lowering his eyes.

“Yes, I would be her uncle. Tyrion Lannister, brother of the infamous Kingslayer. Her father. The man who killed his king, fornicated with his own sister, and fathered three incestuos children, ending up leading the realm towards war and slaughter," he hissed. "Do you think she has never heard such story before? Even children in their cribs might know about it.”

“It’s not the story which I read on the Book of Brothers,” he claimed, hesitant. "The queen in the North and the whole realm might believe the most despicable story. We might still convince the young lady to believe in her mother's." 

_The book. I had almost forgotten about it._

“Is that why you went back to take it?”

Podrick averted his gaze, shaking his head.  
“No...”

“Then why? Fond memories?” It sounded like a taunt, something he immediately regretted.

“Someone had to write about her...” Podrick said, his voice broken. “There was no Lord Commander appointed after her, so I kept the book in my room for weeks, trying to find the strength to fill her page, to find the right words. They never came out properly.”

“Luckily enough,” Tyrion stated, smiling, “otherwise it would be at the very bottom of Blackwater’s Bay along with the White Sword Tower, now.”

Unbidden, he wondered if luck could be considered a real component of what was happening.

Luckily Alyda arrived in King’s Landing right after the earthquake.   
Luckily the girl left right before her home could be swallowed by the waters. 

Something twisted his stomach.

“How long have we known lady Alyda now?” Tyrion asked him, considering the man's suggestion.

“A couple of months...” He shrugged, looking at everything but him.

“Then tell me something. There are two sides of the same story. One version, belonging to all the people in the seven kingdoms, speaks a terrible truth. The other, belonging to her mother, claims a nicer one,” he smiled bitterly. “Which one do you think the girl would decide to believe?” 

The knight answered with silence.

“To make matters worse,” Tyrion continued, “your Lady never mentioned to her that Jaime was her father, not even in secret. Quite frankly, it doesn’t speak of gladness nor pride to me, no matter what she wrote on his page. To Alyda, it does even less so, trust me.”

“What does she think?” Podrick mumbled, frowing.  
  
Tyrion sighed in defeat. “From what I hear, the girl has already convinced herself that she’s not exactly born from love, despite my poor attempts to prove otherwise. The history of Westeros speaks of my brother as if he were a monster, and of course the girl didn’t trust her mother, neither her words nor her honor. How do you think she would react, if we told her?”

There was something new in Podrick’s eyes, as if he was suddenly feeling pity for her sake.

“Has something changed between you two, Pod?” 

The knight now looked almost regretful. Guilty.  
“We spoke...”

“Ah, without insults or brawls?” Tyrion smiled, “I’m quite surprised.”

“There was some swearing on her part,” the knight answered with a crooked smile, until his prior somberness returned.“I managed to convince her I wasn’t her mother’s lover.”

The thought of such absurdity still gave him an hilarious feel.  
“Good enough.”

“Not really,” Podrick said, sounding too much mortified.

Tyrion gave him a frown, eyes wide.  
“What did you say to her?”

“She wasn’t taking silence for an option,” he said quickly, apologetic. “She nagged and pestered until I told her about the years of our companionship. She wasn’t too pleased about it...”

Tyrion closed his eyes, resigned.  
“So, instead of a lover, now you’re the ‘_other son_’, aren’t you?”

_The golden son. _  
Jaime’s face flashed in his mind.

“Yes, m’lord...” Podrick mumbled sheepishly. 

“But unlike the girl, you got to spend a lot of time with her mother, am I right?”

He lowered his eyes.  
“....Yes, m’lord...” 

_Another unavoidable truth._

“I don’t think it was something we could keep from her,” Tyrion grimaced, half disheartened.

_And yet, I hope to keep the truth about her heritage._

_Maybe Bran forbid lady Brienne to tell her_, he reasoned.  
_Maybe the lady thought the thruth could only do harm to the girl._  
_Maybe she’d hoped to spare her and herself some shame, and pain._

_The girl might have been already bitter and poisoned enough to the lady’s liking_, Tyrion considered. 

_As far as Brienne knew, Jaime abandoned her for his loyalty towards another woman, and Alyda was forsaken for his loyalty towards another unborn child. _ _That’s what I was led to believe myself, after all. _ _And all of this thanks to our former, insightful king._

“My lord?” Podrick said after a long moment, “I keep thinking about what she said to me... and the pain and resentment I saw in her eyes...”

“You have no fault, Pod...” Tyrion tried to soothe him, failing miserably in the attempt.

“I can't help but wonder what would be of me now if I hadn’t met lady Brienne.”

Tyrion shook his head, amused. “You’re a decent man, Podrick. A good, loyal man. You’ve always been. That was your core, my friend, even before you had the chance to meet her.”

“Maybe...” the knight conceded, “And yet I can’t stop asking myself what lady Alyda would be now if only her mother had been with her all these years instead of me.”

_She would be at the bottom of the sea with her, Evenfall Hall and all the people in Tarth._

“We can assume the girl might have been less prone to wrath and malice,” Tyrion indulged.

“It’s something which goes far beyond that,” Podrick insisted, “She might have been someone so, so much different. Someone so much...-”

“So much better that what she is?” Tyrion finished for the knight when words failed him. He could say the man was already regretting his utterance, and yet a part of him couldn’t decry any of that.

Maybe he was right, and the young lady would have been a sweet, peaceful creature full of love and kindness.   
Maybe she would have been benevolent, calm and tempered, surrounded by friends and willing lovers. 

But maybe, that wasn’t the person Bran the Broken had needed her to be.

_‘What If I left this kingdom and its people in the hands of other men?’_ the king’s word echoed.

Tyrion wondered if Bran’s twisted plan could somehow be cheated, for all the pain and destruction it was bringing upon them all.

_Whatever fate we’re trying to avoid, whatever choice we take in our attempts, we might already be on the road to meet it_.


	27. The Forest And The Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is it worth planting a flower after you set an entire forest on fire? Would that even have any value?”” she croacked, bitter.
> 
> He wondered what Jaime would have told her.  
He wondered how his brother had felt, in the very end, about the little flowers he had planted to replace what he had destroyed.

Alyda was a walking corpse. 

Her fiery attitude had died out like a expiring hearth, while her daring, combative looks were now replaced by a blank face and a pair of dull, empty eyes.  
The moment Tyrion had told her they were supposed to leave, he had feared, and somehow hoped, a strong response. In truth, any reaction would have been better than what she gave them instead.

Silence. Compliance. Defeat.

Podrick had held her up on her feet, sustaining her body during their walk downstairs and than to the stable.

The worst part had been getting her on horseback.   
She was akin to a brooding drunkard, incapable to mantain her own balance while standing on her legs, and somehow even less while she was sitting. Indisposed as she was, Tyrion had to tie her unmounted horse to his own nag, while Podrick was forced to strap her to himself and to his saddle. Alyda had not seemed too happy about it, and yet she hadn’t openly complained.

The sight of her had gripped Tyrion’s heart. 

_When lady Catelyn lost her husband, she lost her reason. _   
_When Sansa lost almost her entire family in a few months, she lost her innocence and faith. _   
_When Cersei lost her children she lost any love left in her. _   
_When Daenerys lost Missandei and her dragons, she lost her sanity._

But they had all been left with an enemy to fight against.

_This one has lost everything in a few days._  
She had likely never known anything and anyone beyond her isle, and now everything and everyone on that isle were gone.  
She had no one and nothing to blame, if not raging seas and devastating earthquakes. Alyda couldn’t go at war against the water, nor punish the ground she was walking on, no matter how much pain and loss they caused. 

Case and nature were always fair, after all. Never merciful nor ruthless, never biased or corruptible. The perfect and yet worst regents for this world.

He almost wished she had someone left to hate, someone to call responsible for what she’d lost.  
At least she would have easily found a purpose in revenge instead of the alluring melody of death.

Tyrion had found himself praying for the girl, begging the Mother to spare her some misery, and the Father to give her some of her fiery strength back. He didn’t know if he trusted in their existence, and yet, after a week on the road, Alyda was at least able to ride her own horse, her eyes less dull. Still, she didn’t utter a word, lost as she was in the depth of her grief.

_You were never good at solacing_, Tyrion told to himself observing Alyda’s distant figure from their camp. _I wasn’t with Sansa, nor Jaime, nor Cersei. Nor anyone else. _

The sound of Podrick’s horse came to relieve him from the silence of the countryside and, above all, from that utter sense of helplessness he felt in Alyda’s remote presence.

“I couldn’t find much my lord,” the knight said handing him a bundle filled with old bread and not so fresh vegetables. “The few inns still standing are filled with people and emptied of food. I might still catch a couple of hares, hopefully...”

_Hopefully. _Hope was a strange word in such moments.

Tyrion glanced at the girl’s wretched form, sitting on a rock not too far from them.

_My niece._

“Maybe a bit of involvement in the activity might help?” He considered while Podrick fumbled with Alyda’s crossbow and a few other preparations. 

“What do you mean my lord?” he asked with plain discomfort.

Tyrion nodded towards the girl, only to see the knight becoming flustered and beyond nervous.

“... I ... I don’t think it’s a good idea...” he stammered.

“You don’t have to chat with her. Just ask her for help.”

The man looked at him with, baffled.   
“To be fair, my lord, I don’t think she might be interested in helping us. Especially now...”

“You could at least try before deciding what she might be willing or not willing to do for us!” Tyrion retorted.

Podrick seemed on the verge of saying something, and whatever that was, he didn’t seem too sure about voicing it.

“Come on, Pod... spit it out,” he urged.

The man promptly shook his head.  
“I don’t think I should. It might sound..." he stammered, his face troubled, "...I don’t want to be disrespectful.” 

“Pod...” Tyrion warned. 

In the end, the man complied, sighing.  
“I have the feeling that if your sister had been six feet tall and well trained with a sword, you might very well find yourself in her presence right now,” he blurted out, as if he had just revealed the worst truth in the world. He couldn’t blame him.  
Tyrion gave him an half, stiff smile, bothered about the knight's swinging consideration about the young lady.   
“You were pretty quick to jump to such conclusion... you barely know her.”

“I think I've seen enough... but I meant no offense my lord, I truly didn't. I just don’t think she might care to help, even less now. Moreover, I know she hates me ... I think she actually hates everything and everyone. I doubt she would consider my offer...” he rambled, almost frantic.

Tyrion eyed him patiently. “...Are you scared of her, Pod?”

The man widened his eyes. For a second, Tyrion thought he would have promptly denied it. Instead, Podrick lowered his gaze without another word, then headed towards the girl.  
Tyrion observed his disheartened, slow march, yet Alyda didn’t seem to notice nor care about the approaching knight.  
He heard him clearly calling for her attention, something he immediately felt she wasn’t pleased about.   
Podrick was standing a few steps farther than necessary, wariness and nervousness both evident at her proximity, yet the knight was able to keep his voice soft and calm.

But then, no response.

The moment she rose her head, Alyda mantained her eyes fixed on him menacingly, but nothing came out of her mouth. Podrick shifted with uneasiness on his feet, until finally he decided to rush back.

An amused smile formed on Tyrion’s lips.  
“Let me guess...” he taunted “... It didn’t go too well.”

“I’m going on my own,” Podrick snorted “Truly m’lord, I don’t need help...”

“But she does,” Tyrion chided. “This isn’t for you, I thought it was obvious. Just wait here.”

He quickly stood up and trotted towards her.  
Tyrion had noticed how the man was showing a particular compliant towards the girl, but perhaps the years spent among his family had made him a more resilient, persistent dwarf when it came to peevish, suffering creatures.

_And bastards, and broken things..._

Now there he stood in front of her, just as tall as she was.

“My lady...” Tyrion said after she didn’t make a move to acknowledge his presence. When she did, Alyda met him with a cold, soulless stare, one Pod had likely seen a few moments ago. “I’m sorry to bother you, I really am... but perhaps you might give us a precious help. I gather you’re good with a weapon.”

She looked at him for a long time, something deeply unsettling lurking in her eyes. “...Yes...” she croacked, “...I’m very good at fighting. And hurting people.”

It sounded like a threat, and yet felt like regret.

“Listen, I know it’s not my place to ask, but we’re starving... there’s no decent food around here...”

“I’m not hungry.” She rasped, sharp.

“... But I am, and so is Ser Podrick...” he tried. “Unfortunately he’s not a good hunter... please my lady, I beg you. Help us.”

The girl turned to give Podrick a disparaging look, one the knight met with an anxious, offended frown.   
Tyrion couldn't help but wince when, all of a sudden, she decided to stand up with a sonorous snort. Alyda stalked towards her forsaken equipment with long, quick strides, walking with the firm, swaying pace of a bold man.  
When she noticed her crossbow in Podrick’s hands, the girl snatched it from his fingers with a low grunt.

_I think there’s a lot more in you than what you show, young girl, _he observed, aghast_. _She wasn’t pushed by weapons, nor by a fight or a burst of rage, but was instead spurred by the smallest pleading. A request for help.

“See?” He whispered slyly to an annoyed, disgruntled Podrick Payne. “Go with her.”

She was already on one of their two horses when the brooding knight decided to follow, disconsolately.   
Alyda spurred the animal vigorously, causing Podrick to jump back in surprise at the sudden rush. The scowl the man had on his face as he watched her leaving was beyond hilarious.

“Stay safe, m' lord...” the knight muttered before going after her with a rudimental bow in his hand.

“You too, my friend,” he smirked while his horse disappeared in the woods. _Make her furious and alive again._

Tyrion went to sit by the campfire with a loud sigh, a grumbling stomach as his sole company. As he gazed into the flames, he thought about Podrick’s words.

He couldn’t say the knight was entirely wrong in his utterance. _Hate._  
He had seen hatred it all his life, costantly thrown at his face like poisoned water. He knew the way it looked, the way it sounded, the way it tasted.

Cersei had been the embodyment of hate.   
She had been wildfire, relentless, uncontrollable, destructive.   
She was devoured by grudge, relishing cruelty and violence.

He had spent enough time around his sister to know her core, despite her recurring attempts at deception. 

Somehow, when it came to this surly, stubborn girl, he felt something different.   
This one had nothing but pain in her heart, an insistent presence clouding all the good which might have dwelled in it.   
She was relentless, uncontrollable and destructive too, and yet he couldn’t feel hate, nor the actual cruelty he had experienced with his father, sister or Joffrey. 

In fact, Alyda’s wrath almost amused him.

Most of the time, it felt like a cry for an help she didn’t want to accept, a demand for an attention she didn’t know how to handle.

Podrick’s disaffection and cautiousness were understandable, he supposed, but Tyrion had been surprised to see such strong, unusual reaction from his part.  
He had always been kind, sensitive and understanding, patient and gentle, especially towards women and girls, no matter if they were nobles, servants or whores. 

But when he saw him with her, something felt different.   
Almost wrong. 

_Maybe it’s his guilt. _   
_Or maybe I’m far too much biased._

It wasn’t much later that he heard hooves’ sounds coming from the forest. When Tyrion spotted Alyda’s golden mane bouncing along with her steed, he wondered how much time he had spent gazing into the flames, lost in his thoughts.   
Yet someone was amiss.

“W-Where is Podrick?” He asked, feeling a little more worried than what he’d have liked.

The girl’s face remained stern and severe while she dismounted. “I don’t care,” she grumbled before throwing a bloodied bundle to his feet. “Here. Enjoy your meal...”   
She immediately stomped away, leading towards her earlier spot, but he rushed after her, struggling to keep her pace.

“My lady! My lady, listen...!”

“You’re really pushing it, dwarf!” She snapped, turning around brusquely. 

“Listen now, young lady! It’s the middle of the night. Two went, one came back! What the hell happened?”

She studied him with eyes alive once again, seemingly torn on whether crush him or smile at his nerve. 

“The little man wasn’t too pleased with my choice for your dinner. His clever assumptions granted him a slap on his nag’s arse,” she sneered. “That donkey ran away like a chicken, I frankly can’t care less to know where.” 

Tyrion was about to protest when he saw the crouched figure of Podrick sitting on his horse, disheveled and covered in leaves and mud. He looked livid to say the least. 

“By all the gods, can someone explain?” He exclaimed.

Podrick glared at the girl.  
“She had a hind running into her arms, and she didn’t even care to try the kill!”

“Careful, little man!” she threatened, “I have your face at hand this time instead of your donkey’s ass.”

Podrick was fuming. It was something Tyrion had never seen since the day he met him.  
Something wasn’t right.   
Something had not been right for a while, now.

“We could have had plenty of food for days instead of crumbles!” The knight insisted, “She did it just to spite me!” 

“To spite you?!” She sneered, outraged “Do you really think yourself that important?”

“No, but I think you that childish!”

“A child?!” she growled with a cutting, menacing grin. “This child might be able to kill you if she wanted so!” 

“Like you were able to kill that hind?” Podrick countered.

Alyda made a move, as if ready to strike him, but Tyrion rushed between the two of them. “Enough, enough, enough!” he yelled, appalled.

_This is wrong. This is not you, my friend. _

“Pod, we need a word!” he demanded.

Tyrion dragged the knight away, as far as possible from the girl’s fists, ears and gaze. Luckily, the darkness of both night and forest were concealing enough. 

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Tyrion hissed.

“With me?!” The man sounded genuinely surprised.

“You never act like this! You’re worrying me!”

The knight rubbed his face with one hand, visibly frustrated.  
“With all the respect, my lord, I don’t think I’m the one acting inappropriately. Trust me, she’s doing that on purpose, it’s not the first time!”

“Can you speak more clearly?” Tyrion urged.

“She catched a few rabbits. They might last for a day, maybe two. We were resigned and ready to go back, but then, the Gods blessed us with a hind, the first good thing happening in months.” Podrick breathed, dismayed.

“...And?”

“That beast was literally within her sword’s reach after I led it towards her. She stared at it like a fool and then decided to avoid it! She chose to, I saw it!”

Tyrion frowned, perplexed.  
“How do you know that?”

“I confronted her about it, of course! She gave me her typical, arrogant attitude and told me we already had enough rabbits to fill our fat bellies with,” he spat.

“So is that your conclusion? She agreed to help us only to decide she would gladly see us starve within the next few days?” Tyrion retorted. “I don’t care about any of this nonsense, and you won’t say another word about it!” he hissed, adamant. “Now I’d rather take care of our ‘fat bellies’, if you don’t mind.”

Podrick nodded, then headed towards their camp.  
He took care of the three animals by skinning them and impaling their meat over the fire. The smell of it was putting at risk his own sanity, but Tyrion was glad to hear that someone else’s stomach was grumbling in protest as well.  
He glanced fondly at the girl sitting not too far from him, an offended look on her familiar, fair face.  
Alyda was studying carefully each one of the knight’s movement while he cooked and handled their dinner. He could see there was something restless passing through her gaze, something whose nature Tyrion couldn’t grasp.

Then, after a short time, she stood up abruptly and left.

He watched her with puzzlement.  
“Where are you going?!”

No answer came.  
She bluntly ignored him and headed towards her beloved rock.

“Here m’lord...”  
He turned to see Podrick crouching behind him with a cloth slightly stained in red and a few pieces of meat displayed on it.  
“There’s not much, I’m afraid..” he apologised.

“It’s fine Pod, I don’t need much food. I won’t grow any bigger,” Tyrion smiled in sympathy. The man didn’t return it, glancing harshly towards the young lady instead.  
“Be kind and prepare another bundle for her,” Tyrion pleaded.

Podrick met his eyes with a disgruntled look, but didn’t protest.  
He did as was asked, quick and diligent, then brought it back to him without uttering another word. Tyrion clasped the wrapped food from his hands and padded in Alyda’s direction. 

“Here you go,” he said softly, tapping her on the shoulder.   
She tilted her head, eyeing him fleetingly.

“I’m not hungry,” she grumbled, turning away.

“Your stomach strongly disagrees,” he chuckled.

“Keep it for your friend!” she grunted. “We don’t want him to lose those pretty cheeks of his, do we?”

Tyrion smiled knowingly.  
“Starving yourself for our sake won’t help us in the long run, you know?”

“I don’t care!” She retorted stubbornly, and yet faltering. “Just leave me alone!”

“You don’t?” he smiled, “you have a peculiar way to show it. Why did you help us?”

Alyda shook her head weakily, leaning it on one hand.  
“... I was in debt.”

“In debt?” Tyrion questioned. “We’ve been surviving thanks to your gold, and we need to go to Winterfell as much as you do.”

Some muffled sound came from her, whom was still refusing to look at him. “I know...” the girl grumbled.

“...But?” he urged, softly.

“...You’re tolerating me...” she shrugged. “...Even if my gold is running low...”

Tyrion searched her face but, if possible, she managed to hide even further from him.   
“Forgive me, I usually consider myself a clever man, but I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying,” he tried then. 

“I mean... you two don’t care to fuck me... and you’re not too much concerned with my money either, apparently.” Alyda grumbled, sounding almost timid. “But you’re both still here... despite... everything.”

Something gripped his heart, then. It felt like tenderness.  
_Because fate has given me something precious to care for again. A shard from my brother’s flesh,blood and soul._

“I told you before, my lady. Your mother was a precious friend, and a good, generous woman,” he had to say, instead. “It was the least we could do.”

Her head turned slowly to look at him, a bitter grimace twisting her mouth. She looked so much like Cersei, in that moment.

“Once again she was decent enough for the both of us,” Alyda rasped. “I should be glad that your willingness to help never depended on my amiability.”

He winced at his own misstep.  
“That’s not what I meant... I just -”

“It doesn’t matter...” she shrugged, interrupting him, “I know the way I am.”

He studied her for a moment, intrigued.  
“Do you?”

She peered at him over her shoulder.  
“I’m not a deluded fool. Just because I can’t control it, it doesn’t mean I’m not aware of it,” Alyda grimaced. “I can see the trail of broken pieces I leave behind me.”

Tyrion put his hand on her shoulder, for his touch seemed almost welcome most of the times.  
“What I saw today was a girl willing to help despite her grief, and ready to give up her food despite her hunger.” He said, giving her the gentlest smile he could manage. “I don’t see just broken pieces there. I’d rather think that, in your own way, you’ve tried to build something good instead.”

Alyda smirked blankly, suddenly glancing towards Podrick.   
“Is it worth planting a flower after you set an entire forest on fire?” she croacked, bitter. “Would that even have any value?”

He wondered what Jaime would have told her.  
He wondered how how his brother had felt, in the very end, about the little flowers he had planted to replace what he had destroyed.

“Those who knew and loved the forest maybe won’t give any value to your flowers,” Tyrion pondered, his voice gentle. “But those who’ll come after them won’t cling to the loss of something they never knew, nor something they never saw. Yet they would still be left with something beautiful, even if modest, instead of nothing. And that would be thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me they’ve been deprived of something far more precious.” She retorted, stubborn.

Tyrion closed his eyes, feeling her words as if they were his own. “You might find yourself in a huge, flowery field after a lifetime,” he conceded, “Yet it would still be better than a scorched, colorless land touched only by grey ashes.”   
He glanced at a small, golden flower shining at his feet, one he recognised as a Evening star. He bent over to pick it up.   
“No matter how many mistakes you do, what matters is what you’re willing to do to atone for them,” he said in the end, offering the Evening star to her with a huge smile, one she returned with doubt and somberness. 

“Will it ever be enough?” Alyda mumbled, sounding like a lost a child.

“No... no I don’t think so,” he pondered, sincere “But it will always make a difference.”

Tyrion could tell that such unpleasant declaration managed to sound like truth to her ears, and unsurprisingly so.  
What actually surprised him, instead, was the sudden movement of her hand, whose fingers wrapped around the flower’s stem with unespected delicacy as she took it from his own.

It was a pleasant, soothing view, one that filled his heart with hope and contentment.

In the end, her eyes roamed timidly around, until they finally found the bundle of meat he had abandoned nearby.  
“If your offer is still valid, I’d be glad to accept it.”


	28. The Gentlest Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vision of his lady knight appeared still vivid, a broken woman drowning in tears for the man she couldn’t save.  
Her love had not mattered then, he remembered, her love had not been enough. Not in her eyes. If only she had known...

The path through the Neck was as ominous as Podrick remembered.

Its neverending swamps had reacted to the eerie light, creating a low, thick cloak made of pale, sallow haze.   
Moat Cailin was barely visible among the misty sea of gold, the ancient towers still standing in all their decrepit glory.

“It’s almost surreal, don’t you think?” Tyrion smiled, joining unexpectedly his watch. “However... the beast is blackening faster than we thought, so Alyda removed it from the fire. Would you mind giving it a check?”

Podrick blinked, perplexed.   
“Oh, yes of course...”

As they approached their small camp, he glimpsed her tall, golden figure managing the burned carcass. He was disconcerted to see she had opted to cook it leaving it whole.

“Are you sure it has warmed properly inside?” He asked, instantly gaining a murderous look from her part.

“Since your assessments are so much better than mine, why didn’t you take care of it yourself, little man?” the girl snapped.

He was about to fight back, but lord Tyrion interceded.   
“I’m sure Podrick didn’t mean to chide you. I think he’s just concerned about the dangers of a raw meat coming from a beast we don’t know very much about,” he appeased her. “I assume none of us has ever eaten and even less cooked a lizard-lion before.”

Alyda gave them a scowl and clasped Podrick’s dagger.  
“Then we’re going to find out.” she snorted, glaring.

The girl cracked it open putting pressure on the gash she had carved to eviscerate the animal.   
The response to their previous debate was written all over her face. A small, amused smile forced its way on Podrick's lips as he saw the meat still half raw, purple colored and damp with blood, likely due to the resistent scales and high flames. He could tell her embarassment from her crimson ears, and took good care not to utter a single word about it.

When Tyrion opened his mouth to speak, she brusquely stood up, silencing him before he could even dare to do otherwise.  
Alyda was ready to rush away in a whirl of evident humiliation and shame, but decided to kick the carcass with outstanding force before leaving.

_As if her arrogance and shortcomings were its fault_, he huffed, shaking his head.

“Can you take care of it?” Tyrion said, amused.

“Yes m’lord...” he nodded, approaching the lizard.

Podrick clasped the beast and tried to remove the crusty skin at the best of his ability, noticing the way the ribs had broken where Alyda had struck. It felt like defeat, once again.

During their last hunt together, she had behaved almost properly. She hadn’t said too much, but she had been essential when it came about killing the lizard. He had felt surprised and pleased about it, yet a little concerned soon after when, oddly enough, the girl had decided to take care of it by herself, blatantly refusing to hear any of his guidance on the matter. For peace’s sake, he hadn’t insisted further. 

In hindsight, he should have known better.

As it was their custom by then, he prepared three portions. He kept one for himself and then brought the other two to Lord Tyrion, but this time, when he handed him the bundle, the dwarf took his part refusing to accept the one remaining.

“You go this time.” Tyrion smiled slyly.

“Me?” Podrick frowned. “Are you... are you sure?”

“I am.” the man nodded with a chunk of meat already in his mouth. “Go, go...” he gestured, annoyingly playful.

_Mother, have mercy_, Podrick prayed as he turned on his heels.

“Be gentle!” Tyrion called after him, his amusement plain as the day in his voice.

His usual discomfort wasn’t long in coming.  
He saw her sitting against a withish, half burned tree stump, her back turned and her foul mood palpaple.  
Podrick approached her quietly, like he would with some wild, dangerous beast, then he cleared his throat to announce his presence. 

Alyda turned her head quickly. Once she realized he wasn’t the dwarf she was expecting to see, she pierced him with frozen eyes.   
The girl glared him for a brief moment before noticing what he had in his hands, and when she did, Alyda rose hers to perform a slow, scornful applause. 

He waited for her to stop, determined to hold her gaze while a disgusted smirk distorted her face in contempt.

“Well done! Congratulations! How capable you are, isn’t it?” she taunted. “Now you can go to hell praised and content!”

Alyda showed him her back again, but after almost three moons, he now felt almost unaffected by her vitriolic demeanor. Almost.

“I just brought you lunch... Unless you want to eat it cold,” he shrugged.

“I don’t need your condescention,” she snarled. “If I want to eat I can walk and take the damn food for myself!”

“Cold food,” he smiled.

“I can start a bloody fire!” the girl barked, fuming. 

_Where did you come out from?_ Podrick wondered, fighting back an amused smirk.

He could almost see now how her uncle managed to see something hilarious in her outbursts. _They are nothing but a massive pillar of smoke_, he decided.

Podrick approached her quietly, not paying too much attention to her outraged and disgruntled face.

“What are you doing?!” She snapped when he decided to sit against a rock near her tree stump.  
He ignored her complaints and handed her the food, sustaining her murderous, greenish eyes for a long moment. 

Surprisingly enough, Alyda ended it quite sooner than what he had expected.

“Oh, give me that!” she yapped, snatching the bundle from his hand. A small victory.

They both ate their food silently, if not for the sounds of her voracious chewing. It was a relief to see how she had managed to regain both her strengths and appetite, at least.

“I should have shown you how to do it...” he tried to allay her after a while, but she immediately raised her head in alert.

“I don’t need to learn anything from you!” Alyda hissed, as if he had just insulted her. 

“I just think it could be useful to you... should you ever...”

“I can manage things by myself!” she interrupted him brusquely. “Do you think you learned from the finest, little man? That you can do anything better than me because of it?” 

“I believe I’ve learned something you can’t possibly learn in seventeen years, especially living in a castle,” Podrick shrugged. “It’s just inexperience, m’lady, that’s not your fault,” he smiled apologetically.

“Yet you were not taught how to keep your mouth shut, apparently. But I’ll teach you soon enough, if needed,” she threatened.

_Of course, he realised, my teachings, her mother’s teachings. Absolutely reviling._

He didn’t utter another word for some time.   
In his silence, he tried to find the right thing to do in order to gain some kind of benevolence from her part. It was something that seemed to come frustratingly easy for lord Tyrion.   
On the other hand, anything coming out from his own mouth seemed to hurt her like a knife to the heart, one way or the the other. The thought of it had consumed him like a pyre, estranged as he was to the idea of being the major cause of another’s suffering.

_It’s my fault_, he could see now, _with my presence, my words, and my role in all of this._

“Lord Tyrion told me what you did after the first time we hunted together.” He said in the end, determined to start a dangerous game. 

The frown she gave him in return was made of suspicion and sourness. “So what?” Alyda retorded, guarded.

“He told me you were willing to give up your food for us,” he continued, as gently as he could. “It was a generous thing to do, and I’m sorry about what I implied, that evening. I was wrong.”

Mistrust and acrimony didn’t leave her eyes, but at the very least nothing seemed to worsen.   
“You were wrong,” she repeated, sharp, “and I have no use for your apology.”

“She would have been proud of you.”

And there it was, yet again, an other wound opening right in front of him whereas he’d planned to give the smallest amount of relief.The turmoil that was now going through her gaze was a wretched spectacle to behold. Indignation, wroth, confusion, derision and sorrow succeeding one another frantically, and yet nowhere he could see a single hint of what he’d hoped to achieve, instead.

“No...” she simply said in the end, looking at the ground in the poor attempt to keep her already faltering composure.

Despite the urging need to convince her otherwise, Podrick knew that the only useful thing he could do was made of silence. _You can’t do this_, he chided himself for his reckless audacity, _she’s already broken enough._

But then, to his immense surprise, the girl decided to speak.

“I adored her,” her voice came trembling like a flower fighting against a raging wind. “I worshipped her.”

Podrick searched her eyes, but Alyda was determined to avoid him, looking aimlessly in the distance.  
“She was everything I once aspired to be. Everyone on the damn isle looked at her in awe. At first I was convinced that if I had become half of what she was, people would have looked at me in the same way. They told me I couldn’t," the girl shrugged, shaking her head. "So I simply admired her from afar, along with the others. All I wanted to do was to scream to the whole world that I was hers, that she was mine,” Alyda grimaced, agonized. “They told me I couldn’t.”

The girl started tormenting her left hand, scratching and digging in the flesh with her nails. He was sure she would've soon drawn blood. 

“Every time I asked why, they told me it was a secret, and it had to remain a secret. But surprisingly enough, no other child I knew had to be secretive about his parentage. After all, their mothers weren’t sworn to nubility, were they?” she smiled, tensing. “Other children had the privilege to call their mothers in front of everyone, but I could do that only away from prying ears. Mine was consistent, though. She never called me hers in any situation, no matter what. The walls could hear her, you know?” the girl sneered.

_Maybe they could. Maybe they did. But why?_ He wondered, distraught. _What harm a caress or a kind word might do to the reign of Bran the Broken?_

“I had to be her secret. I had to live in the shadow,” the girl muttered wrily, “You speak of her pride for me, little man. You spoke of her love for this... deviant of a daughter she found herself with. And yet do you know what I’ve realised very, very soon in my life?” 

He merely shook his head, afraid to utter any other word.

“People don’t hide things they’re proud of,” she sulked. “The only things secrets are made of, are shame, fear and regret.”

Podrick tried to get closer, and for some obscure reason she allowed it.   
“But people sometimes hide what they love,” he whispered, gentle. “They hide what they hold dear in order to protect it, because they’re afraid something might come and take it away.”

Somehow he could see that a part of her wished it to be true, yet a stubborn, unrelenting side forbid her to do so.

“I’m nothing precious,” she said, blankly. “No one would have come to take me away. The only thing I was, was an affliction that people wanted to get rid of. And they all did, you know? One way or the other...” 

“But she was coming back...” he risked. “Despite of what's happened, she was more than willing to be with you, this time.”

Alyda was already shaking her head in denial, but he was determined to make her listen.

“You know what I think?” he said, touching her arm, “I think you somehow made her realise that her love mattered... that her presence or absence were relevant in a way she’d never experienced before.” 

The vision of his lady knight appeared still vivid, a broken woman drowning in tears for the man she couldn’t save.  
_Her love had not mattered then_, he remembered,_ her love had not been enough. Not in her eyes. If only she had known..._

“You might have seen strength and resoluteness in her, my lady,” he continued, his chest clenching “but I doubt she’s ever felt crucial in other people’s life, let alone important for their happiness. Just like you. And how wrong she was, wasn't she?” 

Alyda was watching him intently, her eyes glistening yet somewhat unreadable. She was considering his words, he could tell, maybe even pondering on them. 

“I have nothing to remember her by,” the girl suddenly said. “I gave away the only thing I had left for a bag of gold. And now that very same bag is just as empty as it was when it was filled with gold,” she grimaced, leaning back against the trunk.

_The necklace_, he remembered, sad.

“Maybe there’s something else left,” he suggested, much to the girl’s puzzlement.

Podrick went to his horse, who was eating content and peaceful nearby, then he fumbled with the saddlebags until he could take out what he was looking for. Her eyes remained fixed on him all the time. 

“Here.” Podrick said, turning back towards her.

“What is this?” she muttered, confused.

“The White Book,” he smiled, fondly. “I’ve finished her page a couple of nights ago. I had to use a groat of yours to get a rudimental feather and some ink, but they did their work.”

The girl took it from his hands and opened it on her knees, then he promptly helped her to find the page she was looking for.

When she did, Alyda's eyes roamed through the many lines of Brienne’s deeds and went quickly towards the end, no emotion yet palpable on her part.

“It’s not finished,” she said, then, her voice hollow. 

It wasn’t what he was expecting to hear.

“I think it is, actually...” Podrick answered, feeling suddenly sheepish and uncertain.

She simply shook her head, no further explanation.

“You know what?” he pondered, beaming a kind smile at her, “Why don’t you do it yourself?” He then handled her the ruined feather and the poor amount of ink left in its minute jar. “There’s not much left, I’m afraid.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the girl claimed, still looking sternly at the page.

He nodded and rose to his feet once again.  
As he walked away, a part of him felt anxious at the prospect of his loving commemoration tarnished by poisoned words, and yet another part was yearning for hope. Still, he had to wonder if hope had any place in the world they were living in.

That night he found the Book of Brothers in his dreams.

It was lying on the ground, blackened and burned by unforgiving flames, its pages all destroyed and its words forgotten.   
The anguish he felt in return was able to wake him up with a startle, but when he turned on his side wishing to resume his slumber, he saw Alyda sleeping not too far away, snoring quiet and peaceful. 

And there it was.  
Still intact and apparently untouched, the book rested at her side, like a doll guarding a child’s dreams.

He couldn’t help but approach it silently, nervously, then opened it were he last saw those few, precious words he'd spent weeks trying to gather. 

> _ **"Ser Brienne of Tarth, born Lady of the Sapphire Isle and former member of the Rainbow Guard for king Renly Baratheon.** _

_ **After her king’s died at the hands of Stannis Baratheon, she pursued the war against Renly's enemy by swearing allegiance to the Starks and vowing to find and protect the now queen in the North Sansa Stark and her sister, Arya Stark.** _

_ **In her quest, she fought bravely and defeated ser Gregor Clegane, the Hound, former member of the Kingsguard, and managed to successfully avenge Renly Baratheon by executing his murderer and older brother, Stannis Baratheon.** _

_ **She kept her vows and saved Sansa Stark from certain death at the hands of House Bolton, subsequently becoming a trusted protector and coucillor for house Stark.** _

_ **Her honor, bravery and prowess allowed her to become the first woman ever knighted in the known history of Westeros, in spite of our past legacy and its resistance.** _

_ **When Winter and the army of the dead came to shred the living, she led a battallion to war, fighting valiantly until victory and a new dawn came.** _

_ **With the election of King Bran Stark, known as the Broken, she was appointed Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and served in the Small Council for almost seventeen years, actively helping in the reconstruction of the realm and its people’s lives.** _

_**Finally released from her vows, she now rests in the waters of her beloved Stormlands. The sea took away one among the most valiant knights the whole seven kingdoms ever knew, an umparalleled Commander and an unsurpassed fighter, but mostly and foremost, a beloved friend**__**."**_  
  
Nothing had changed, Podrick acknowledged with relief.

Only a single, final word was now following his last, one that managed to give him the greatest joy of the last moons, one that held more love than anything he'd been able to write.

_ **“Mother.”** _


	29. A Stain In Whiteness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The queen stood up to reveal a long, dark, elegant gown embroided in flowers and wolves. Her long, red hair framed a fair, snowy face, adorned with cerulean eyes and scarlet lips.
> 
> "I’ve never seen such a beauty, Alyda observed, admiring her. This one might even be worthy of a song."

_ _

_Snow. I must have seen it before._

She might have been four, maybe five years old the last time a snowflake had touched the warmth of her skin, but even back then there was never too much white on her isle.   
Their climate was always welcoming and forgiving, nothing like this cold, stern, ugly place.

Winterfell.

_No wonder why mother found herself a new home, here._

Alyda hated the way she still pestered her thoughts, no matter how good or bad they could be. She wished she could simply make her disappear forever, as if the woman had never existed in her life.

_I shouldn’t have spoken to the little man_, she concluded. _It was weak and stupid of me, and this is what I get because of it. _

“So here we are...” Lord Tyrion said reaching her on the white rise along with his trusted companion. 

_Yes, here we are._

The castle stood seemengly intact, looking somehow near and yet somewhat distant.   
A huge, rough stain in the infinite whiteness of the North. 

“What do you think of it?” the dwarf asked.

Alyda didn’t grant him her eyes.  
“It looks like a big pile of shit.”

She immediately sensed both men’s annoyed glances, and wondered how they could still expect something nice coming from her mouth. 

As if these fools didn’t know what she was, already.

“Alyda, we should talk about something, before going any further,” the dwarf nagged. She could only close her eyes in irritation. 

“I really don’t want to.”

“Then I’ll speak, and you’ll listen,” he announced. “We’re about to meet a queen, and a friend. She’s a precious ally and our only chance at survival. Winterfell might be one of the few household still standing in Westeros.”

Alyda eyed him, irked. “So?”

“So... I would ask you to put nowhere near the words ‘_pile of shit _’ and anything related to Winterfell or the North from now on. Are we clear?”

“I’m not an idiot...” she grumbled, seething.

He shook his big, curly head. “What I mean is, just... behave, please. No swearing, no rude comments, nor clever remarks whatsoever. And be sure that whatever you don’t say isn’t going to be displayed all over your face instead.“

Her mouth twisted in contempt.  
“I’m not interested in hearing a single word from this people, let alone respond to any of it,” she grimaced.

“We're lucky enough then,” the dwarf nodded before mounting on his horse with ser Podrick’s help. The knight followed him immediately and then, not as much eagerly, so did she.

The road was almost desert, likely due to the unusual cold.   
She knew that the Northern summer was always touched by ice, snow and frigid weather, and yet the unnatural sun seemed reluctant to bring the summery warmth that was somehow expected.

Alyda tug her discrete furry cloak as close as possible to her face, trying to breathe anything warmer than vaporized ice.

_I loathe this place already_, she decided, trembling. _Which sane person would decide to live here?_

When they finally approached the entrance of Winter Town, several guards became alerted from their presence.

“Ohi, there!” one of them came in hurry before they could go any further. “No one is getting through here!”

The three of them stopped their horses, much to her annoyance. The prospect any unnecessary moment spent in that stinging, cold air, was enough to set her ears on fire.

“We are not no one,” the dwarf announced in a light voice. “You’re speaking with Tyrion of house Lannister, Hand of the King.”

“The king is dead!” The guard exclaimed, hitting her already resentful ears with one of the most insufferable accents Alyda ever had the misfortune to hear.

“I’m very well aware of that. I was there,” Tyrion said.

“No outsider gets through here!” The man repeated. “I've got orders!”

The dwarf turned briefely to look both her and Ser Podrick, then looked at the man in front of him once again.

“What’s your name, my resolute friend?”

“Cleon Wood!” He bellowed proud, spitting on the ground.

“And tell me, Cleon, you got orders to keep away a lord, the former husband of the queen and a true friend of the northern crown out from Winterfell?” 

“No one means no one!” the man insisted.

“Then go refer to queen Sansa,” lord Tyrion demanded, “and before you might think to refuse, I wish to remind you that crows don’t need doors nor your permission to bring words to the lady’s attention, expecially if the royal raven is sealing them. They might happen to mention your name too, Cleon Wood.”

The man gave them a dubious, offended look, but finally he turned towards a couple of his companions still guarding the entrance. 

“Move your asses! Go tell the queen!” 

It didn’t take too long.

In the matter of a few minutes, a small group of men in fancy armour came to escort them inside.  
Lord Tyrion gave Cleon a broad smile before brushing past him and his vexed gaze.

“See?” the dwarf adressed her after a while. “No fights, no tantrums, no big bad consequences. Keep well in mind where such approach is leading us.”

Alyda gave him a glowering grimace, to which he responded with a wry smile.

As they followed the royal guards through Winter Town, a few people begun gathering around them, curious at the sudden movement on the main road.

“Put your cape over the head,” lord Tyrion said.

“Why?” she grunted.

“Because you’re noticeable. We don’t want that, trust me.”  
  
“What’s more noticeable than a dwarf?” Alyda retorted.

“You, girl!” he hissed, gesturing at her hood. “Put it on!”

She clenched her jaw, but did as he ordered.  
The whole group headed through the northern settlement and then towards Winterfell, whose household was surrounded by the thickest walls she had ever seen. Around them, there was nothing but empty whiteness, the most desolating sight since the wretched ruins of King’s Landing.

When the doors finally opened, many eyes fell on them, but the faces they belonged to were nothing but suspicious and grim.

All except for one.

A woman stood out from the crowd, for she was far more taller than those around her slender, dark form. Her face was half hooded, but it was her bright, crooked smile that really called for Alyda’s attention. 

“Lady Alyda,” Ser Podrick’s voice reached her ear, “Let’s not remain here. It’s not wise.”

She nodded begrudgingly, then dismounted from her horse and followed the rest of the group inside the castle.

What she saw beyond the entrance didn’t surprise her.

The whole structure was as much bleak in the inside as it was from the outside, only less bright. The windows made the sunlight dim and weak, barely relevant. The only effective source of light came from the moltitude of candles and torches scattered around the whole place, only allayed by a majestic, bright fireplace.

And there she was. The queen in the North. 

Her throne stood right in front of the hearth's raging flames, which danced and fidgeted akin to the arms of starving prisoners eager to reach and devour her wooden, regal chair.

“Lord Tyrion,” the woman greeted when he approached her with a wide, luminous smile, “we meet again.”

The queen stood up to reveal a long, dark, elegant gown embroided in flowers and wolves. Her long, red hair framed a fair, snowy face, adorned with cerulean eyes and scarlet lips.

_I’ve never seen such a beauty_, Alyda observed, admiring her. _This one might even be worthy of a song._

The queen and the dwarf stood there for some time, their words utterly indiscernible to her ears. Alyda observed lazily the dour surroundings in the waiting and, unbidden, she found herself wondering where her mother used to sit in that grim, dark hall.

A beacon in the night.

“Ser Podrick,” the queen suddenly called, approaching the two of them, “It’s good to see you. It’s been a long time.”

The knight gave her one of his stupid, broad smiles and clasped her hand in courtesy. "A very long time indeed, queen Sansa."

The woman smiled with kindness at his gesture, but it all faded when, finally, the woman’s eyes met hers.

It felt painfully familiar.

Unsure on what to do, Alyda opted for a clumsy bow which would have horrified septa Sècile to death. She suddenly felt glad about the hood still covering her head.

This time, the queen gave her a small, amused smile before bowing her head in sympathy.

“Welcome to Winterfell, lady...?”

She searched lord Tyrion’s face, who responded with a small nod.  
“...Alyda,” she mumbled. “I’m no lady anymore...”

Her icy gaze made her oddly nervous.  
“Alyda...” The queen repeated, solemnly.

“It's terrible, I know...” she blurted out in embarassment before she could stop herself, only to feel Podrick’s scabbard hitting her leg in admonition. 

“Do not speak like that...” the knight lectured her through gritted teeth.

“There’s no need for such formalities, ser,” the queen smiled, lenient. “I’m sure the lady is tired and in pain. Lord Tyrion just mentioned to me your home was in the Stormlands... I’m really sorry for your loss,” she concluded, apologetic.

Suddenly, it all came again like a boulder on her chest.

Somehow there were moments, even hours in which Alyda could almost forget, only to have it all come back ten times stronger than before.

She immediately felt her breath becoming laboured, difficult. She knew what was about to happen.

“I- I... need to leave,” Alyda panted, struggling to keep her composure. 

The woman frowned.   
She couldn’t tell if hers was worry or offense, but the queen called immediately for the maester’s help, who scrambled to his feet and rushed towards them.

The man was well over sixty, with a thick beard, a few hair and a sturdy frame. Alyda was particulary glad about his latest feature when he reached out to support her.

_Did my grandfather feel the same about me when I did it with him?_ She wondered, feeling her legs trembling with weakness, _Was he glad I was there, at least in those moments?_

“Maester Wolkan will take care of you,” Sansa reassured.

“Thank you, my queen,” the dwarf said hurriedly, before trotting alongside them.

“Lord Tyrion,” the woman called, as they were leaving. “Ser Podrick will accompany her, if he must. I’d like to have a talk with you first.”

The dwarf looked at her like a worried, guilty child before leaving their side in resignation with a loud sigh. 

“As you wish, my queen.” 


	30. Walking On Thin Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I see you well...” Tyrion smirked nervously, yet nothing in her features changed. He lowered his eyes in embarassement, suddenly feeling the pressure of her gaze on him.
> 
> “Is there something you want to tell me?” the queen asked coldly.

Sansa’s room was darker than Tyrion expected.

She quickly closed the door behind them, then gestured for him to take a sit near the hearth.

“I’m sorry about the way we decided to show up...” he stammered with an unsure smile while the woman circled around him. 

The queen didn’t answer.  
She took few, long, elegant steps towards the the table, then sat in front of him, her eyes calm and a stern expression on her fair face. 

_Despite her years, she still looks as beautiful and proud as she was almost twenty years ago._

“I see you well...” Tyrion smirked nervously, yet nothing in her features changed. He lowered his eyes in embarassement, suddenly feeling the pressure of her gaze on him.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” the queen asked coldly.

_Is there something you don’t know already? _

“I’m... sorry for your brother,” he mumbled stiffly.

This time, she was the one who had to look away.  
“My family is cursed, I’m afraid. I made peace with that a long time ago...”

_Yours and mine both, my queen._

“She’s not with you...” Sansa added, after a moment.

“...She?” He blinked, confused. 

“Lady Brienne.”

He could only shake his head, no other words needed.  
Her face became pained, her eyes shiny.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Sansa whispered. “She was a woman bound by duty and honor. They were both with her king.”

“No,” he said, without really thinking. “She died in a shipwreck. Her duty wasn’t towards her king anymore when it happened.”

Sansa watched him carefully, solemn.  
“And where did her duty lay, then?”

He frowned silently, deciding to focus on her hands rather than her face.

“The girl you brought here...” the woman begun, “Who is she?”

Tyrion thought of many answer, and yet none seemed appropriate, in that moment. It had been far more easier in his mind, back when he could explain the situation to the memory of her instead of the woman she had become.

“She’s very tall. Exceedingly so.” Sansa continued, unsatisfied with his silence. 

He nodded weakily.  
“Yes, she is.”

“That’s rather uncommon."

“...I guess so,” he mumbled.

“I took a glimpse of golden locks under her hood. I think that’s why the hood was on her head to begin with. Am I wrong?”

“You’re not...” Tyrion conceded, shaking his head slowly.

Sansa straightened herself on her seat, head up.  
“I took a glimpse of her face too,” she continued, “those are features not easy to forget.”

“Yes, she has... quite unique features, I think,” he shrugged. 

“Not that unique, though,” the queen staggered him, “quite the contrary, I’d deem them rather familiar.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

_Here we are, in the end._

“My queen, I...” Tyrion begun sheepishly, but she rose her hand to stop him, instead.

“She can stay.”

He felt his brows rising beyond his hairline.  
“Can she?”

“For now...” Sansa gave him a small, sad smile, “A wise man once told we shouldn’t condemn sons and daughters for the faults of their fathers. Daenerys did worse than the Mad King nevertheless.”

_Jaime’s faults were bound to love and duty, never to the pursuit of power. _Tyrion wanted to argue. 

“I allowed Brienne to get in the way of my judgement when your brother came here, I owed her that much,” Sansa pierced him, “I might be doing the same mistake now with you and your niece. Don’t make me regret this choice twice.” 

“I know,” he simply said in the end, defeated by the occurrences. “Thank you, Sansa, with my heart.”

She bowed her head and stood up, then turned to watch the flames dancing behind her.

“I knew there was something else...” she murmured, mostly speaking to herself.

“What do you mean?”

Sansa went silent for a few moments before speaking further.  
“The day Brienne asked me to release her form her vows,” she continued, softly, “I saw something different in her, something unusual. I thought her grief was the major cause behind her request, and I respected it nontheless. But then, it came the Kingsguard.”

“It was a great honor...” he grumbled, holding back a grimace.

“It was indeed,” Sansa stated, facing him again, “I was fond of her, I knew I would have missed her council and friendship, but I understood the circumstances. Bran needed her more than I did, after all,” she sighed, “....Of course the Kingsguard was a greater honor than what a modest, sworn sword could ever achieve, and King’s Landing was a place without unpleasant memories. “

_Yet Jaime’s bones were there, Tyrion considered._   
_It might have been some sort of comfort to her, having him there. It was for me, at least. And now he might be scathered all over the bay, as far as I know._

It felt like loosing him once again.

“So the girl house Tarth actually chose was your brother’s seed... It wasn't some stranger from oversea, nor some illegittimate child of lord Tarth, as some seemed to imply in the past,” Sansa considered, pensive. “Bran was always dismissive on the matter, and I didn’t see a reason to ask for details.”

“You and me both,” he mumbled stiffly, hoping to conceal his resentment.

“Of course, that’s understandable, I assume,” Sansa nodded, almost ignoring him. “I still remember the whispers and the looks people in King’s Landing gave me after my father was proclaimed a traitor. I'll never forget how small and despised they made me feel.”

“You did well despite that, though,” Tyrion smirked.

“I did. Yet my father was still Ned Stark, wasn’t he?” the woman countered. “Things might have turned out quite differently for me had he been the reviled Kingslayer.”

His smile died slowly on his mouth.

“And what about her, instead?” The queen suddenly questioned. “How much does she know?”

Tyrion looked down at his hands. “Very little, to be honest... and I believe it’s in her best interest if she remains as much oblivious as possible.”

He could feel the queen’s insistent eyes on him, solemn and unyelding, and after a long moment of deafening, chastising silence, he had to look up at her again.

“So she’s not aware her father left for the sake of your sister?”  
Sansa said cutting, her contempt fully in display.  
  
“Actually... she doesn’t even know Jaime was her father,” Tyrion grumbled, suddenly feeling almost embarassed.

A small, mocking smile appeared on her beautiful face.  
“So she doesn’t know very little. She knows nothing at all.”

“You two have that in common, apparently.” Tyrion said abrubtly, before he could stop himself.

“Beg you pardon?” she said collected yet visibly outraged.

_Why did I say that, for gods' sake?_

He shook his head both in defeat and regret.  
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he stammered, “I must tell you the king himself implied that my brother’s motivation laid elsewhere, and they held nothing good for our sister’s fate.”

The queen remained unimpressed.  
“And what would they be?”

_‘But you care for one innocent’_, his own words came to haunt him again, the words that doomed his brother. _And he had cared. Of course he had._

“His daughter... and his lady,” Tyrion claimed, proud. “Your father gave up his honor for the sake of your family, my brother wasn’t different.”

“Oh but he was, wasn’t he?” she scoffed. “I don’t have to deny my heritage to have people’s respect, nor is in my best interest to do so, for my own safety doesn't depend from it. On the contrary, my father’s name helped me to survive and take my home back. I hold my head high every time I utter his name, my name.”

“My queen...”

“Tell me something, lord Tyrion," she interrupted, "If what you claim is true or somewhat redeeming for your brother’s position, then why you didn’t tell lady Alyda the very same story?” 

_I can’t come out unschated from this._

“Well... you see... lady Alyda is a peculiar girl, and this goes beyond her looks,” he tried, for once unsure about his words.

“How so?”

Tyrion breathed in deeply, trying to gather his thoughts properly. 

“She’s quite... emotional.”

“Emotional,” Sansa repeated, cold and unconvinced, “how is that a solid impediment towards something that important?”

“I fear her emotions are not that good, most of the time..." Tyrion revealed, diffident, "I think she’s just very... insecure and... harsh with herself... and it makes her a bit unstable in her reactions. That’s all.” He smiled nervously.

“Unstable?” the woman questioned, suddenly alarmed. “How much instability are we talking about?”

_Shouts. Outbursts. Threats. Insults. Fights. Possibly brawls._  
  
“Pain,” he simply said, “a lot of pain. I don’t want that for her. I know that if I told her Jaime died to save her from our sister’s wrath, the girl might be able to blame herself for it. That’s the kind of emotivity we’re talking about.”

Sansa lifted her chin, still doubtful.

“I won’t lie to you,” he continued, sensing her concern, “she might be a bit... difficult at times. But I know she has a generous heart, I’ve seen it.”

The queen looked at him intently, a bitter smile touching her mouth.  
“Difficult, you say...” she mumbled, amused. “Cersei told me the same thing about Joffrey.”

“...Sansa...”

“She’s your niece, lord Tyrion, I don’t think I can trust your view on the matter.”

“I’ve never seen generosity nor goodwill in Joffrey. He was my nephew too,” Tyrion retorted, standing up.

“Still... I’m more inclined to trust my eyes and ears rather than yours,” she announced, resolute. “As I said, I’ll give her the chance to stay here and serve me well. Yet, I must tell you now and clearly that should I ever see something unpleasant, even in the slightest, I’m sending her away.” 

Tyrion’s mouth hung open for a moment before he could fully realise the meaning of her words.  
“S-Serve you, my queen...?”

“She had a sword hanging from each hip,” the woman pointed out, “I gather she must know how to use at least one of them properly?”

He widened his eyes, suddenly panicked.   
“Yes b-but... I don’t think she has the right attitude for...”

“She’ll figure out a way, I believe,” Sansa stopped him, sharp. “It’s a fair price to pay, given the precarious situation.”

“How... how much precarious?” 

The queen sighed softly, then approached him with slow steps.  
“Dangerous, and terribly so...” she replied, her concern genuine. “Braavos has lost his two titans by acquiring another, lord Tyrion. They call it the Rift.”

“The Rift?” he frowned.

“A breach wide at least six hundreds yards in its largest point, splitting the whole city in half, now collapsed to its knees,” she nodded, grim. “The crow we received said the Titan followed the same fate, crumbling under his own weight after the ground splitted between his feet like an immense mouth. This gash reportedly drunk all the waters surrounding the city, along with hundreds of ships and thousands of people.”

Tyrion covered his eyes with a trembling hand.  
“What about the Iron Bank?”

Sansa slowly shook her head, her silence more meaningful than any other word.

The Iron Bank of Braavos, untouchable and unbeatable.  
The primary fund for usurpers who had proven themselves far more reliable than indebted kings.   
The insatiable eater of whatever spoil wars and conflicts brought, now laid in forgotten depths, chewed and swallowed by the jaws of an unforgiving earth.

Tyrion had never dreamed something like that could happen, not even in the worst scenarios. Not even in the worst nightmare. 

With the fall of all the major institutions in Westeros, Essos and probably beyond, nothing now could reign but chaos. 

“As you see, lord Tyrion, I’ve more important issues to face than your young lady’s attitude.”

He bent his head sheepishly.   
“Of course...”

“From now on I doubt we will live in a comfortable situation, above all when it concernes trades and supplies. Being among the last castles still standing is both a privilege and a danger. I need capable people who can hunt and feed the mouths of those seeking refuge and salvation, and I also need trained swords ready to defend us when others will come to take what little has remained intact in the seven kingdoms.”

“Of course, of course...” he repeated, still half dazed. “But what should I do if she refuses? She’s stubborn like a mule and as proud as a king!” 

The queen smiled stiffly, her annoyance blatant.  
“I will not accept anyone who wishes to take advantage of the few resources available without doing her part," she announced. "Should the girl disagree, I’m afraid our doors will remain closed.”

A small laugh left Tyrion’s mouth despite his disconcert.

_Now I need to find a way to put a leash around a lion’s neck without losing mine._


	31. The Chain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is she... always like this?” Wolkan asked sheepishly, then.
> 
> “More or less,” Podrick muttered, his reproving gaze still fixed on her, “It’s strange when she doesn’t bark at everyone.

* * *

As soon as the door closed behind her, Alyda collapsed in the corner of the maester’s room.   
Her hands and legs were trembling, her head was spinning, her heart was hammering, and her lungs were on fire. Ser Podrick knelt at her side, but didn’t dare to touch her.

While she was struggling to control her own breathing, Alyda could hear Wolkan fumbling around with jars and pots for what felt like an endless time. 

“Here, drink this,” the maester finally said with a calm, reassuring voice and a small cup in his hand.

“What is this?” she croacked, looking at the whitish concoction inside.

“It will soothe you.”

“Milk of the poppy?” ser Podrick intervened.

“Not at all ser, but it can be as much efficient,” the old man asserted.  
The knight didn’t seem persuaded with his statement, and maester Wolkan didn’t fail to notice.

“There’s no need to worry, ser Payne. This is just a small medium to improve her actual state, nothing more,” he smiled. “Isn’t this the reason why you brought this young lady in here? To make her feel better?”

“Not too much better, though” ser Podrick warned, slowly standing up.

The two of them looked at each other, a silent conversation running blatant through their eyes. 

“I understand your worries, ser, but this is far less potent than the poppy, and far less amiable. She won’t be looking forward to take it, I can assure you.”

Ser Podrick glanced down at her, unconvinced.  
“Don’t be so sure about it,” he grumbled. “She might surprise you...” 

Had she been less focused on her short breath, Alyda would have gladly had a small conversation about his remark. 

_Mock the beast as long as she’s in the cage, little man._

“Drink, girl,” the maester urged. “You’ll feel a lot more better.”

When she finally did, not a single drop of the first sip managed to reach her throat.  
“Oh gods!” she coughed in disgust. “It's...It’s sickening!”

It tasted like blood and somehow worse, for it felt rotten and scorched.

“You must be quick. Don’t let it too much on your tongue.”  
Wolkan suggested. “Cover your nose if necessary.”

“And why didn't you say that before!?” She snarled, astounded.

"Feeling better already I see..." Podrick muttered, earning one of her ominous stares. 

She grimaced at him in contempt, trying to gather enough courage to drink from the cup again. This time, somehow, the awful liquid managed to reach her stomach.

“Good girl...” the maester patted her shoulder. 

“Go to hell...” Alyda grumbled through gritted theeth, trying to focus on anything but the taste in her mouth. She could feel ser Podrick's displeased glare on her already.

_Keep watching me, little man. See if I care._

“How do we handle this, from now on?” he asked Wolkan, after a while.

“I’d suggest to take some of it if necessary," the maester shrugged, "If she panics again or if she has difficulty breathing...-”

“The hell I will!” She growled, interrupting him.

“Stop acting like a child!” ser Podrick vexed her.

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do, dog!” she shouted. “I’m not one of your kind!”

Alyda knew he could have responded with cruelty, it would have been easy. She had already a tenth of harsh retorts in mind, and possibly at least one was on the tip of his tongue already. He didn’t let it out.

_Pity._

“Is she... always like this?” Wolkan asked sheepishly, then.

“More or less,” Podrick muttered, his reproving gaze still fixed on her.

“I see...” the maester nodded. “So... nothing strange whatsoever?”

“It’s strange when she doesn’t bark at everyone,” he shrugged, looking at her with the hint of a stupid smile. 

How she detested that face.

“And what about you, ser?” Wolkan added, “Is everything all right with you?”

“I'd say so...” the knight answered, puzzled, “Is there something telling you otherwise?”

“No, no, no,” the old man said immediately. “People can behave differently in difficult times, and these are harsh times indeed. I just wanted to be sure everything was fine...”

Alyda could hear a hint of nervousness in his voice, but she knew how people usually reacted around her. This couldn’t be any different. 

“Are you feeling better?” Wolkan suddenly asked her. “You’re breathing properly, it seems.”

“...Yes.” she grumbled, looking away.

He clasped one of her wirsts, and she somehow managed to fight back the urge to snatch it away from his grasp.

“No tremors. I think you’re going to be fine,” Wolkan smiled before searching Podrick’s face again. “Ser, may I ask you to leave?”

The little man widened his eyes, obviously adverse to the prospect. “May I ask why?”

“There are things me and this young girl should talk about. I think she might be more relaxed if it’s just the two of us...” he said apologetically.

“I don’t think it would be wise...” Podrick scowled.  
  
“There’s no need to worry,” the maester reassured. “Trust me.”

The knight watched him uncertain eyes, but then walked out the door giving her a last admonishing glance.   
Alyda wondered how one could be so self-righteous and be still breathing the livings’ air.

Suddenly, the maester took a chair and gestured for her to sit on it.  
“It’s much more cleaner and warmer than the floor, I assure you,” he said, taking a stool for himsel and placing it in front of hers.

As she rose to her feet and slowly took her seat, Alyda's eyes fell on his chain, something that made him look more like a prisoner than anything else. The old man hunched over her as if inspecting for something. 

“Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?” he said after some time.

“Yes,” she protested, tired.

“You don’t have to answer if you wish so,” he reassured, “...Still, if you do, it might help me to help you. What do you say about it?”

This maester Wolkan sounded timid and yet clever, not imposing and yet confident. Somehow she might have liked him, Alyda decided.   
“We can try.”

“Very well!” he smiled, content. “First, you’re a noble woman, am I correct?”

That had never been debated in her life. Now, stripped as she was of her fine clothes and a neat hair, all it was left was a brutish girl with a lousy demeanor and a wild temperament.

“Not anymore...” she rasped, “I'm afraid that title has followed its household, its people and my fortune.”

There was a genuine sadness in the man’s eyes, but luckily he didn’t offer empty words of condolences.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said instead, obviously determined to change the subject, “You must have received an education nontheless, though, that’s not something you can be deprived of.”

She felt her mouth twisting by its own volition into an offended sneer. “Yes, I’ve received an education.”

“So you’re familiar with courtesy and decor...” he nodded. It didn’t sound like a statement.

“I am. And yet I don’t act like I know anything about it. Is this your problem?” She dared him. 

“...No, in truth not at all,” he said unfeigned and somewhat curious. “Your friend seemed to imply that you behave like this quite often, am I right?”

“He’s not my friend!” she spat, irritated, “...But yes.”

“May I ask if it’s a choice? Or...” 

“A choice? How could it be a choice?!” she snapped, betraying herself.

“I've no intention to offend you, young lady," he apologised. "I’ve known noble women who willingly didn’t act or spoke like ladies normally would. I gather that’s not your case, though.”

Defeated, she lowered her gaze, ready for whatever might have followed. “...For the most part," she admitted.

“And, if I may, it’s something you recently have experienced any worse than ever before? Let’s say, during the last few weeks, for instance?” 

_When I got deprived of everything and everyone I had, you say?_

“No. I’ve always been like this,” she claimed, sharp. “It simply got worse over the years, I guess, although the latest events have certainly not improved the situation.”

“I understand,” he nodded, pensive. “So nothing inusual at all. You never saw strange things, or... heard strange things?”

“No...” she scowled, confused. “Nothing of the sort.”

“Not even your friends?” he insisted. “Haven’t they changed in any way?”

Alyda snorted in annoyance.  
“I don’t think so... No... I don’t know... I’ve known them for less than three moons, now. The little man is detestable and pretentious as ever. The other one is tolerable.”

“The little man?” Wolkan frowned. “Lord Tyrion, you mean?”

“The idiot playing the knight,” she grumbled, leaning back on her chair. “I don’t judge men on their stature.”

“Oh...” Wolkan chuckled, “He seemed genuinely concerned for your sake, though. Protective, I’d dare to say.”

_If I were flesh and blood of another woman, he wouldn’t care if I was breathing or not, old man. Just like anyone else._

“Unless you’re planning on helping me with clever assumptions, I think you’d better speak about matters you know something about.” Alyda said instead, yet far more harshly than how she had intended to. 

The man’s face made her regret her words immediately, but she found herself laking the strength to apologise.  
Alyda knew what would have happened if she did, for her eyes were already burning with unshed shame.

“Very well, then,” he said, glum. “The amount of grief you’re experiencing might be the cause of other fits like the last one you’ve got. They could happen to be less severe, but they could also be significantly worse.”

_As they should be._  
“Could I die?” 

The man looked at her in an odd, even intrigued way.  
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, my lady, but the worst thing that might happen is a whirl of very bad sensations.”

Alyda eyed him stolid.  
“What if it happens again, then?”

“The palliative I gave you before was..-”

“I don’t think so,” she glared, stopping him abruptly.

Wolkan rose one hand in surrender and blatant exasperation.  
“If that’s not what you want, then the only thing I can suggest is patience.”

“Patience?!”

“Every fit is going to leave you, sooner or later. If you don’t want an unpleasant yet immediate solution, there’s little I can do. There are few herbs that might help soothe you or make you sleep more easily, but they’re not as effective, nor so rapid.”

“What about the poppy?” Alyda suggested.

The old man grimaced with uneasiness.  
“I wouldn’t recommend using it unless you have to endure an otherwise unsustainable physical pain.”

“But I am in pain...” she hissed, clenching her teeth. “... And I want it to go away.”

“It would not be a cure, my lady. The pain you’re feeling is of your mind, not your body’s. If you make of the poppy your long term solution, it won’t ever be enough.”

“But it would go away, isn’t it?” she pressed.

“I won’t give it to you unless you have broken bones or limbs in need of amputation,” he stated, resolute. “At worse we use it for those who suffer chronical pain from previous injuries, certainly not for something like this.”

“You’re willing to give me that rotten shit instead!” Alyda shouted, standing up. “You said it does the same thing! You said that! You...”

“It works differently and won’t cause extreme reliance,” he interrupted her. “Do you really want to be hooked to the poppy indefenitely, my lady?”

“I just want it to end!” she hollered, more and more close to sobbing. “I don’t want to feel anything! I’ve always felt too much and I don’t want that anymore!”

The man looked at her with sad, pitying eyes.

_Pity. Always pity._

“This chain I’m carrying is not just an enhancement, my lady," he sighed, "We don’t remove it for anything in this world, not even in our sleep. It’s a reminder of the realm and the people we serve in each moment of our lives, and“I can’t in my heart do something that I know would be detrimental for your wellbeing, no matter if it gives you an apparent relief.” 

_It won’t be apparent_, Alyda wanted to scream, and she almost did before she saw the door suddenly opening.

A tall, slender woman stood at the threshold, hair as dark as the night and a long, comely, sharp face. When she got closer, Alyda noticed how thin her eyes were, green like the brightest emeralds in the world, yet cold as the deepest sea. She might have been in her forties, although such unusual gaze made her overall looks almost deceiving. 

“Is everything all right Wolkan?” the woman said, trenchant.   
When their green eyes met, she gave her a fake, yet familiar smirk.

_Did I see you before, or is my mind fooling me?_

Her thoughts felt clouded, and so seemed her memory.

“I was starting to think you got yourself a tiger, my friend, yet I see you’ve just found a spirited girl instead,” the woman remarked.

_Snake._

The more she looked at her, the more the word came to pinch her tongue, over and over again. There was something unsettling, malicious and acrid in those unnatural green eyes, of a kind Alyda must have seen before, looking in the mirror.

“It’s fine, Hai, but I’m afraid your decoction has been poorly received,” Wolkan smiled, glancing at her.

“Ah, that’s unfortunate,” she taunted. “May I recommend some honey to go with it?”

“That’s not funny...” Alyda hissed, fuming.

“Of course not,” Hai grinned before adressing Wolkan again. “Lady Alana needs your assistence, I fear. I’m sure I can take care of this beast in your stead, if needed.”

_You bloody adder._

“Oh...” The maester muttered, saddened. “That woman has been quite unlucky with her childbearing. Is she leaking again?”

“I’m afraid so,” Hai claimed, unafflicted. “If she goes on like this, house Cerwyn won’t see its heir this time either.”

“Poor Lord Cley... why can’t the Mother be merciful with him?" Wolkan whined, "The man has seen enough atrocities for one life.”

“There’s still time,” the woman added, much to Alyda’s dismay.

The maester rose slowly to his feet and sighed with dejection.  
“Very well, then,” he groaned. “I noted some word about this young lady here, nothing major or relevant regarding her condition. The only work left for you is made of persuasion, I think.”

He floundered towards the door and closed it gently behind him, followed by the woman's watchful eyes.

“He’s a kind man,” Hai muttered when she lost sight of him, “Yet a girl like you doesn’t do well with kindness, is it?”

_A girl like me._

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Alyda spat.

“I think you know already,” Hai shrugged, giving her a venomous smile. “But I’ll take care of you from now on.”


	32. Bleeding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least three different hands had written on his page, but only the latest had been quite generous with words, both in quantity and value. A huge waste of ink, actually, considering that the only act worth of any flaunt was the assassination of his king.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: from now on, some content might be deemed strong or offensive by sensitive people. I want emphasize the fact that the characters thoughts and opinions don't reflect mine (it should be obvious, but just in case...)

* * *

The price to pay was not long in coming. 

Lord Tyrion had given it many pretty names, but there was one and only befitting such infliction. Slavery.

Fight for the queen.   
Defend the queen.  
Feed the queen.   
Obey the queen.   
Don’t upset the queen.

Captivity and unconditional subservience in exchange for amenities and protection she herself was largely going to provide, along with many other people with a sword. And what could she be among them, if not a rabid mutt surrounded by obidient dogs?

_“Can you also provide for your own remedies and medications, young lady?”_ Lord Tyrion had efficiently retorted, then.  
The moment the dwarf had uttered those words, Alyda had wished to choke the life out of him, and his wits along with it. 

Madness and folly.   
Lady Sansa wasn’t her queen, just like no one else named Stark.  
Unfortunately, overbearingness didn’t prove itself enough to grant her the freedom she craved, at least not without risking being thrown out from Winterfell the very same day of her arrival.   
  
Since then, on demand of lord Tyrion, she’d spend most of her time away from other people, something Alyda had nothing to complain about. She’d mantain direct contact with few, trusted people of the crown, and she’d come out in the open only during the evening, when smallfolks, guards and sunlight finally began to wane. Then she would turn her frustration against dozens, hundreds of logs, chopping them into pieces until her arms and shoulders would scream in agony.   
Winterfell’s woodpiles had no way of remaining empty, and at least she was glad of how many people could warm themselves with her efforts for several nights to come.

And how she hated those nights.

Whenever they came, there was nothing she could do but stare into the fireplace, listening to herself.   
Her mother’s presence still lingered in the room the queen had so considerately assigned her, leaving her in a midst of comfort and anguish at the same time. Perhaps the woman had deemed it a kind gesture towards her, but nothing could be farthest from the truth. 

Still, Alyda had not been able to refuse.

It was just a bed and four walls, after all, and the furry blankets were somehow able to give her the only solacing embrace she was willing to accept before her tormented slumber.  
Those were the moments in which Alyda had grown used to distract herself with the book ser Podrick had given her, an annoying, soporific heap made from the deeds of better men and a better woman.

All except for one.  
And how peculiar it was to see the worst deemed member in the White Book being followed by one among the best. 

At least three different hands had written on his page, but only the latest had been quite generous with words, both in quantity and value. A huge waste of ink, actually, considering that the only act worth of any flaunt was the assassination of his king.

_Kinglsayer. And the dwarf and their sister along with him, if bequeathed words were true. A farrow of kingslayers._

She wished she could have been one of them.   
She wished she had gained that name herself, four moons before, although not even in her dreams she seemed able to accomplish her attempts at regicide, to the detriment of Bran the Broken.

_No man should be holding the power to take away a mother from her child. _

She would have gladly destroyed any man holding or demanding that power.   
She would have gladly destroyed that power itself. 

_“You can’t destroy power without power,”_ Gerold had once told her. _“The moment you succeed, you’d become the same thing you once wished to annihilate so fiercely. Would you willingly destroy yourself too, girl, in accordance with such childish idealism?”_

A sneer was quick to arrive any time she thought about those words. _Willingly or not, I’ve always been on the path to destroy myself. Gerold knew it better than everyone else._

But there were other ways, or at least so this unpleasant healer named Hai seemed to imply.   
Now, as she stood in front of the woman’s door, Alyda couldn’t help but wonder if whatever she was suggesting could be one among those paths, for hers had always felt so very straight, desolated and unbranched. 

She was about to knock, but the door opened before her as if spellbound. Green eyes unwelcomed her in.

“You’re late,” Hai reprimanded. “Why are you late?”

_Adder._

Alyda lifted her chin in spite.  
“I wasn’t sure I wanted to come.”

“Very well,” she smiled stiffly, and cold. “Now you’ll have to wait.”

Alyda grimaced in irritation and tried to follow her inside, but Hai lifted her hand, stopping her in place. 

“Here in the hall, girl.” the adder chided, “I shall let you know when you’re allowed to come.”

The woman left her in the dark, small, desert hall, all umpleasant features that seemed to touch every corner of that dull, ugly household. 

Alyda sat on the frozen ground, still able to peek through a generous crack in the door. She sensed some movement, heard some muffled words, and then saw the black figure of a woman with a swollen belly walking around inside.  
It went on and on for what felt like hours, until the unbearablre waiting almost brought her away from that place. That was when the sounds of voices and footsteps became louder and nearer.   
The door opened again, and the swollen woman lumbered out from the room. She had noble clothes, neat brown hair and a thin figure if not for the unsettling enormity of the belly deforming her fragile body.

“Are you going to remain on the floor?” Hai’s detestable voice came piercing her ears. “Come in.”

Alyda rose up with a grunt, stomping inside along with the unsufferable woman. 

The healer circled around her before heading to her desk.  
“Looking less wild today, I see.” she grinned, mailicious. “I’m sorry the sight of lady Alana displeased you, young lady.”

“Pardon me?” Alyda frowned. 

“I can read a face, girl,” the woman smiled, clearing up her table. “I gather the prospect of motherhood wouldn’t excite you that much, am I wrong?” 

Alyda opened her mouth in confusion. “I... I don’t know,” she stammered, irked. “What difference does it make now?”

“It depends,” Hai squinted. “To what point does it bother you?”

“I’ve never put too much thought on it.”

“Then do it now,” the adder pestered.

She didn’t like her tone nor the sound of her words.  
Everything coming out from that spiteful mouth tasted like a taunt, and the way this woman seemed to be relishing in her distress was almost umbearable. 

But an answer the snake wanted, and an answer she was going to get.

“Maybe I don’t like to see a body twisted and deformed by a self-serving, unrelenting force.”

It was pure, plain venom, she knew, something any woman would have loathed to hear.  
Alyda was prepared to receive her indignation but, unexpectedly, Hai didn’t seem neither outraged nor surprised by her statement.   
On the contrary, she seemed almost intrigued by it.

Alyda had to wonder if anything in that world held the power to shock such a cutting, algid creature. 

_I wish I could be that cold._

“It’s curious, you know?” Hai grinned wily, “unwilling mothers might have felt the same way... Yet hearing that from someone who’s never been one has quite a peculiar sound.”

Alyda shrugged, uncaring, her eyes searching the nothingness outside a small window.

“...What if it turned out to be like me?” she grumbled.

“What are you talking about?” 

_Why am I even telling you this, I wonder._

“...Imagine finding yourself with a child you’re unable to love because of what he is... who still demands tooth and claw to be loved,” Alyda said, hearing her own voice crumbling, “I don’t think I could manage that, not when I know what it feels like being that child. It would be cruel... I think.” 

“I don’t have to imagine that, little one,” the woman grinned, oddly amused, “but I’ll assure you that all children are unrelenting presences forcing their way inside your body, sucking the life out of you and endangering your life once they decide to come into this world, no matter if they’re deviant creatures, as you like to call yourself, or not.”

_Did I call myself that? _Alyda pondered_, When...? Did I forget?_

“Most women still want them, though...” she retorted, “The others simply abandon them, mistreat them or, even worse, pretend to love them.”

“And why should one pretend such thing, sweetheart?” the adder laughed heartily, showing her theeth, “it’s not a marriage, you know?”

Alyda sighed softly, already able to feel her own spirit extinguishing like dying embers.  
“Maybe because you’ve a noble soul, and in your heart you feel it’s the right thing to do. Not everyone is that good at pretending, ufortunately.”

_Mother certainly wasn’t._

The woman had likely done her best, she had to concede now. Maybe she had been willing to try even more by coming back home. And yet Alyda knew that, as generous as the woman was in her intent, the ruse would have inescapably collapsed in front of her, one day after the other, just like it did in the past. 

_I must not be fooled by anyone’s words_, she decided thinking about the dwarf and the little man’s empty lectures, _mother’s nobleness didn’t make me any easier to bear. _

Maybe the woman had been aware for seventeen years that the best way to hide her loathing and shame towards her child’s existence was distance.

_And it all would have ended because of my latest whims and display of weakness_, she considered, disgusted with herself.   
_And it did end nontheless, if not in the worst way possible. _

“What does all of this have to do with my situation, anyway?” Alyda grunted, crushed under the weight of defeat and emptiness.

Hai’s unnaturally green eyes lit up in delight.  
“If you wish to eradicate an infesting weed, you follow the tips in order to find the roots,” she claimed with opened arms. “The clues are always there if you’re able to recognize them, just like a disgusted look of yours.”

“I wasn’t disgusted!” she spat, feeling a strange warmth in her face and ears.

“Yes you were...” the adder snickered, far too much amused, “But I’m willing to tell you a small secret on the matter.” 

“Delight me,” Alyda scoffed, looking away.

“Not all the wombs you see are hosting someone like you,” the woman whispered, “and most of the times the hosts are quite welcome in there.”

“...I know,” she grumbled, somehow offended and ashamed at the same time. “Are you going to say something useful too now, maybe a kind that doesn’t involve children and bellies?”

Hai observed her for a moment, a crooked smirk still in place.  
“You wanted milk of the poppy for your fits, Wolkan said.   
I can now tell you there’s nothing able to soothe this on the long term, if not yourself.”

“Oh, really,” Alyda scoffed, “And how should I do that?”

“Grief is a lie, sweetheart,” Hai chanted, leaning her elbows against the table, “its sole purpose is to dissuade us from experiencing the same loss and pain again, making us more desperate and afraid at the prospect. It drives you to take more risks in order to protect whatever makes you feel good and happy.” The woman tilted her head, a pleased smile on her sharp face. “You might think you’re feeling sorry for others because they’re gone, but in truth you’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”

_I’ve lost people long before death could take them away_, she wanted to shout, hadn’t it sounded pathetic._ I might have been grieving all my bloody life nevertheless._

“And what’s your clever suggestion on the matter?” Alyda simply grumbled instead.

If possible, the woman’s grin became even wider.   
She couldn’t help but wonder whence such leisure came.

“We’re always led to consider the downside of our loss. It makes us bitter, angry and jealous of what others still have. Needless to say it doesn’t make us look nor sound that pretty. I bet you know something about it.”

“That’s why it’s called a loss!” Alyda barked in frustration.

“If you want it to be a loss,” the adder retorted, lifting her chin. “How about making it a gain, instead?” 

She felt her eyes squinting with doubt.  
“How so?”

“For instance you could spend more time thinking about how you’re better without what you’ve lost. Somehow I’m sure you’ve tried your best to do something of the sort in the past, despite a couple of... obstructions.”

“Obstructions?” Alyda frowned.

“The two men accompanying you... I believe they’ve tried to do their best at solace. They must have failed still, given your poor state.”

“Maybe...” she shrugged, “Still, they’ve done things for me that very few others have ever done in seventeen years.”

“And... who would these ‘others’ be?” Hai inquired, curious.

“It doesn’t matter,” she tensed.

“Yes it does,” the woman nagged, suddenly harsh and severe. “Everything I’m asking matters.”

Alyda had to look away, stricken by sensations she wasn’t eager to welcome again.

Too many had grazed her, passing by like river water.   
Several had touched her with their harshness.  
Others had scratched her with their indifference.  
A few had torn her apart with their rejection.

“I had a grandfather. I don’t think the rest had some real meaning to me,” she muttered.

“Are you sure?” Hai smiled, cutting. “No one else?”

“Not really...” Alyda grimaced, looking at her feet.

“So what are you so sad about?” the woman chuckled. “Nothing had meaning to you, except an old, ill man who was inevitably going to die in a short time, anyway?”

Alyda eyed the woman aversely, but this one didn’t flinch.  
“His death wasn’t his choice,” she hissed, while her breath grew more and more laboured. “He didn’t leave me by choice, he never did. But I left him instead, and he died alone.” 

The image still haunted her, day and night.

The old man who had cared for her since she was just a little, useless monster roaring from a cradle.   
Her grandfather, sick and afraid, barely able to stand on his own legs while Evenfall Hall crumbled around him. 

_He didn’t deserve such fate, not while I live. _

_I should have been there to save him. _   
_I should have supported his weak body struggling against the trembling earth._   
_I should have dragged him away to the first boat, or die in the attempt. _   
_Instead I was in King’s Landing, chasing my retribution towards a by then dead woman and an already half dead king._

_It was my cruelty and my selfishness that saved my life, and now I shall endure it alone, in return._

“Maybe he didn’t leave because he hadn’t the privilege to leave,” Hai proposed, dragging her away from her thoughts.   
“Maybe he remained because he had no other choice but endure his circumstances.   
Maybe death was a relief to him, freed of his duty and illness.”

“I-I...” Alyda’s mouth opened, but words failed her.

_It could be true. Of course it could be._

_The man might have fallen ill because of me and the sorrows I gave him_, she suddenly realised. 

_I should have died in the cradle. _   
_I shouldn’t have even existed, to everyone’s good._

Alyda fell to her knees before she could realise it.   
As her trembling legs abandoned her, a familiar sensation hit her chest, hindering the air from her lungs. Her heart soon threatened to burst out from her ribcage, and all she could hear was her own body screaming for help.

The woman stood there unimpressed for a moment, then took out something from her satchel.

“Drink,” Hai ordered then, placing a small flask against her lips.

Alyda recognised the smell, the awful, awful smell.   
She didn’t care.   
The fit was something worse than what she had ever experienced before, certainly far worse than the bloody swill’s taste.

She drank greedly, almost unafflicted by the disgusting savor, which somehow didn’t seem so umbearable anymore.

“Good,” the woman uttered, pleased. “If it takes so little, you’re going to have a significant problem.”

Her ears were still ringing, but Alyda could still acknowledge the derision in the adder’s voice.  
Hai despised her weakness, and she couldn’t really blame her for it, but it was still surprising to see someone so ruthless calling herself a healer.

“...Why does it keep happening?” Alyda rasped, feeling numb.

Hai watched her absently, as if searching for words she could be able understand.   
“It’s the bleeding of your mind, little one,” she simply said, then, “...But unfortunately for you, it’s far easier to stitch a gash in your flesh than this.”

“Then... then what are you going to do?”

"If you throw a rock into a lake, the waters will twist and fidget accordingly for some time, but then they will inevitably return to their previous state of calm," the woman said. "You might be then led to assume that nothing has changed and everything is gone back to normalcy... but then...” Hai gestured at her half slumped form, tacitly jeering at her pityful state.   
“Your rocks are still there, likely as big as boulders, far more heavy and hard to remove than little stones.”

Alyda brought a hand to her chest, feeling her heart finally quieting down.  
“...How long it takes?”

“Ten years?” Hai shrugged, “Fifty? A hundred? For many a lifetime is not enough,” she chuckled. “I know that what I said has left you... quite shaken,” the woman continued wryly, “but if you’re seeking for a commensurate retribution towards your dead ones, then living might be your best choice.”

A small, bitter laugh escaped her.  
“...Sure...”

The woman straightened her back and walked towards the small window bringing light to her wretched den.  
“Have your chuckle now, if you will,” she uttered, looking forth. “Things won’t be even remotely blissful for those remaining, specially outside these walls. Should death come for you, you’d have an easy way out, for sure. That’s what your people got. That’s what your family got too.”

“...They would’ve rather live,” Alyda managed to snarl, despite the dizziness.

“Not anymore. Not under this pale, twisted sun,” Hai smiled, without averting her gaze from the distance. “The lucky ones have known the merciful relief of demise, for the world we’re left with, will be molded from the likes of us.”

Alyda watched her intently, silent and unmovable like a statue, until green finally could meet green once again.   
“Stop wasting your fire over the bereaved, young lady,” the woman said, in the end.“The dead have no need of its light.” 

Still, she couldn't help but wonder if there was anyone deserving of that fire left alive. 


	33. The Untold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa couldn’t help but wonder if Brienne had felt as stupid as she once had, so whishful to erase each moment that led to the day she met the prince.The only thing she knew for certain, was how glad she’d been that Joffrey never got to put a child in her belly. 
> 
> Brienne had not been so lucky.

* * *

“When will she be ready?”

Wolkan seemed rather embarassed by her query, but Sansa was starting to grow impatient with escuses.

“My queen... I don’t recommend haste in such circumstances─”

“Our circumstances don’t allow time,” she hissed. “We are likely facing something worse than the doom of Valyria, yet I'm still here trying to understand whether I’m feeding another snake in my nest or not.”

The maester went silent for a moment, frowning.  
“Pardon me my queen, but why allow her in if you can’t trust her?”

_I can trust nothing with golden manes and claws, by now. _   
_Had lady Brienne been wiser, I wouldn’t be allowing inside our walls anyone resembling a Lannister any time soon._

Sansa turned on her heels, heading towards the fireplace.  
“I need fighters,” she lied, “....but I won’t take further risks if the girl turned out to be ─”

“I understand your concern," he interrupted, "but the crows’ words might be overstated, my queen. I wouldn’t give too much weight to things we’ve yet so see for ourselves.”

“They used to say the very same thing about the White Walkers,” she snapped, “they had no care for our scepticism, and came for us nontheless.”

“The young lady claims she’s been affected by such a temperamental attitude since birth,” Wolkan insisted, “I doubt there’s anything related to the Citadel’s scroll. Fear and turmoil can get the better of the most rational man’s sense. After all, no one else in the North has shown similar signs.”

_Not yet..._

“Except that the girl doesn’t come from the North,” she countered, “we don’t know if and how it spreads.”

“We don’t even know if something like it even exists, my queen,” Wolkan whispered vehemently.

“You maesters and your chains”, Sansa smiled, “always ready to dismiss any notion that doesn’t fill the pages of your precious books.”

“You may doubt me, but you can hardly question Hai on the matter,” Wolkan retorted. “She has the same opinion about her.”

Sansa turned her head and met the old man’s eye.  
“Did you assign her the girl?”

“Actually she asked for her herself,” he shrugged. “The young lady seemed in need of an amount of time I didn’t dispose.”

“Time?” Sansa inquired, “How much time she can possibly need to spend in her company?” 

“...My queen ─”

“I’ve lost a home, a father, a mother and a brother in a few months, maester Wolkan. I was left inside a den of monsters and cruelty, and no healer felt the need to speak to me on the matter, nor to help me getting through it,” Sansa claimed, sharp. “...And do I need to remind you what happened even after, right between these walls, as soon as Bolton became my new name?”

“Hai deems her more fragile than what you might think, queen Sansa," Wolkan winced, troubled by the memory. "The battle against grief might appear the same for everyone, but the weapons each one of us has at his disposal can be quite different. We must not forget compassion, no matter how little another’s pain can seem compared to ours.”  
  
_Lions seem to be shrinking more and more into cats with each passing generation_, she considered.

“Very well,” Sansa finally said, dismissive. “I just want an assurance that I’m not actually nourishing a dead ground.”

_Should people notice how someone’s receiving everything with no efforts... _

“Hai believes she can still be quite useful, eventually...”

“I heard you took away her weapons, though,” she stated. 

“Aye, I did.”he nodded, “...It’s precautionary.”

“How can she be any useful without? Should I appoint her as my minstrel? Maybe she can at least sing...” Sansa scoffed. 

_If she can’t fight, nor be deemed essential in any other way, how do I keep justify her presence here?_

“My queen, no one compels you to keep her here, if your people’s opinion concerns you...” Wolkan murmured, timid.

“It’s not their opinion that concerns me, but their response towards a sensed injustice,” Sansa said resolute. “Sometimes a small spark is more than enough to start a fire. In the near future there will be enough dry grass to spread the flames, and not enough water to shut them down.”

The old man looked at his feet for a moment.   
“Should we keep the spark away from dry grass, then?”

Sansa closed her eyes, half exasperated, half disheartened.  
_To what extent will gratitude bind me to the daughter of a dead friend, a stranger?_ she wondered. _And up to which point will it bind me to the daughter of a turncloak? _

She could still remember the state in which she’d found the lady knight, that dreadful morning. It had been like seeing the biggest, sturdiest fortress ever created crumbling in front of her, something Sansa had never expected to witness, something dire and yet astounding at the same time.

The woman had reminded her of the foolish, naive girl Sansa had once been years before, when she thought that her golden headed prince was meant to give her the happiness she craved.

Love.  
Marriage.  
Children.

The crown.

It all had felt so tangible and perfect before the betrayal.  
Before the beheading of her father.  
Before the slaughter of her family.  
Before the beatings.  
Before the humiliation.

Her dreams shattered by a cruel reality.  
Everything lost, all because of her blind stupidity. 

All because an awful day the Lannisters had entered her life, with their cruelty, beautiful faces and charming ways.

All because she’d fancied a monster disguised like a golden, handsome, merciful prince. 

_At least this girl doesn’t act like some sweet, harmless princess with an amiable smile. _

Still, it was terribly difficult to think of the lady knight while looking at those familiar, feline green eyes.  
It was so hard to overlook features so similar to those of people who’d tortured her, both in body and spirit. 

Sansa couldn’t help but wonder if lady Brienne had felt as stupid as she herself once had, so whishful thereafter to erase each moment which had led to the day she met the prince.

The only thing she knew for certain, was how glad she’d been that Joffrey never got to put a child in her belly. 

_Brienne had not been so lucky._

“... I’ll abide this for no more than two months from now,” Sansa finally stated. “After that, I’m expecting her to wield a weapon productively. I can’t keep her confined forever.”

“...Yes my queen,” Wolkan said, but she could recognise an unanswered question in his stance.

“Something troubles you?” Sansa sighed.

The maester glanced at her sheepishly, like a child caught lying.   
“My queen... If I may ask... what is exactly this young lady to you?” he murmured, unsure. “You don’t seem to want her here, but you don’t seem willing to send her away either.”

_A debt._   
_A liability. _   
_The remnants of a loathsome deceit._

“A valid resource, hopefully,” Sansa claimed, instead, enshrouded by a cold light. "I've already told you."

“You seem interested in peculiar traits when it comes to choose your resources, though,” the old man uttered, suddenly not so timid anymore.

Sansa turned slowly to face him, determined to conceal her alertness.  
“Careful with your boldness maester Wolkan,” she warned, “It does not befit your mouth.”

_And lies don’t befit a queen’s_, something unpleasant suddenly told her.

To her relief, the old man’s gaze found the ground soon enough. He nodded his head in reverence and moved towards the door.

“I’m loyal to you and to your bidding, my queen. Still, I consider my duty to caution you...” he said before taking his leave, “Other, more attentive eyes might not be so benevolent towards your best interest. The finding of the unsaid hardly inspires trust. Be sure it’s worth the risk.”

Sansa eyed him carefully, noticing a hint of mortification on the man’s face.

_Strange it took you so long to utter such words, _she considered, almost amused. 

“Your duty has nothing to do with unsolicited counsel, even less with insulting claims,” she uttered, cold. “If you feel the urge to do my interests, as you preach, I would recommend you to finalise the preparations for the joust. Time is running short.”


	34. Seeds Of Strife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She should have had the courage to ask a long time ago, yet had always been too afraid of the answer. 
> 
> "Now I’ll never know, no matter what the truth might have been. I’ll never know whence I came from, either.  
And maybe it is better this way.  
Or maybe..."

* * *

With the waning of the unnatural sunlight, the northeners gathered inside their houses, yearning for the warming, welcoming glimmer of their fireplaces. They'd be soon be sitting around an old table and a hot meal, speaking to their families about another dull, cold day spent in Winterfell.

If she closed her eyes, Alyda could almost picture a fine, luminous day filled by occasional, distant laughs and muffled chattering she would never be part of. 

Where she had to go, after all, there was no chattering nor laughs to hear.

_As if the adder’s lair wasn’t grim enough during the day._

Hadn't the woman insisted beyond Alyda's boundaries of forbearance, she would have spent the evening chopping piles of firewood.

So there she was now, walking slowly and listless, eyes down and a cape over her head, wondering once again how could someone spend her entire existence living in the shadow. 

_Why am I even here?_ Alyda asked herself each time, just like she’d been doing almost every single day of her life.  
It always felt so, so wrong for her to exist, even more so when so many were trying to hide her away like some lurid, shameful sin.

_“It’s for your sake,”_ her grandfather used to tell her, but Alyda had always known it really wasn’t. 

_It was for them. _   
_It was for them and their bloody reputation._

If you can’t bring yourself to get rid of something so disgraceful, the best you can do is conceal it, she supposed. 

On her part, she'd have gladly stepped into the sunlight, if only to spite those who couldn’t bear the ridicule she’d have inevitably brought upon them.

_One worthy of a true bastard._

Lost in those thoughts, Alyda could barely aknowledge the sudden, cracking sound of steps in the snow. She couldn’t recognise their owner until she got the glimpse of a familiar, peculiar shape.

_Lady Cerwyn. _

The woman was approaching slowly, hindered by the bulky presence of her belly, her mind seemengly elsewhere, for she couldn't notice Alyda’s massive form before walking into her.

“Oh... forgive me, I was —” the lady stuttered.

“It’s quite all right,” Alyda interrupted her, and lady Alana gave her an apologetic smile in return.

She looked so fragile, so terribly ustable with her meagre frame.  
Her swollen belly seemed even bigger than the last time she saw her, now able to crush and bend her spine under its unforgiving weight.

“...May I... help you somehow?” Alyda blurted out, feeling her ears heating up. “... It’s slippery...” she added when the woman looked her with confused, big blue eyes. 

The lady didn’t seem too eager to accept.

“...What... what are you doing out here at this hour?” Alana asked tentatively.

“And you?” she retorted. “Where’s your lord husband?”

The woman’s eyes became suddenly glacial, almost familiar.  
“You’re speaking to a lady, impudent girl” she hissed, outraged.

“And so are you,” Alyda countered, holding her head high.   
“...I bet he doesn’t know, does he?”

Lady Alana narrowed her eyes in frustration before sighing in defeat. She put a hand on her womb and continued on her path, one that seemed to bring her in the vaery same place Alyda was meant to go.

“Are you going to follow me, now?” The woman snarled when she perceived Alyda’s steps behind her. 

“I am afraid we’re heading towards the same destination,” she smiled slyly, “...and to the very same healer nontheless.”

Lady Cerwyn stood still for a moment, but her prior coldness was now replaced by something similar to simpathy, maybe even worry. Her gaze darted quickly towards Alyda’s stomach, then to her own feet. 

“I see...” she said then, sounding strangely grim. “My husband heard too of the things Hai is willing to do after sundown. It’s one of the several reasons for his hatred towards her. His disapproval is the reason why I’m here in the nightly hours,” the lady whispered with a small, weak voice. “Are you... are you really willing to do it...?” 

“Do what?” Alyda asked, utterly puzzled by her words.

“...Getting rid of your child?” she muttered giving her a furtive, embarassed glance.

Alyda stood in place, incredulous and torn on whether withold or unleash her laughter.

“Fear not, I’m here for very different reasons,” she grinned. “Hai had no time for me during the day, so she found some to give me during the evening, as you see. Unlike you, there’s nothing in here...” Alyda claimed, patting on her stomach.

“...Oh... Gods, forgive me, how stupid of me...” lady Alana blushed. "I didn't know she received her sufferers during the —"

“...Is that why you’re here?” she asked instead, interrupting her. “Is it shame that brings you here at night, well away from a revealing light?”

“Are you always this irriverent, young... lady?” the woman frowned, stiff. “I’ve known children less bold with their words.”

“I’m a very tall child,” Alyda smirked.

Lady Cerwyn scoffed, looking away.   
“My dear lord Cleon doesn’t appreciate Hai’s foreign methods, even more so since he has found out about her audacity towards unborn children of unwilling mothers. He says they're mostly prostitutes'.”

_Audacity?_

“...And yet here you are anyway,” Alyda stressed, amused.

Lady Alana’s face darkened, her eyes now almost watery.   
“I’ve had three miscarriages already,” the woman revealed, taking Alyda’s grin away. “This is the farthest I’ve ever gone with a pregnancy, and yet I’m living each day fearing it might be the last for my child. The sight of its life bleeding out of me once again haunts me every night. Every moment spent without feeling him move inside of me is filled with anguish and terror.”

With glistening eyes, the lady brought a hand to her chest, while the other rested on her womb.   
“Hai helped me through this,” she continued, “If I can still dare to call myself a mother it’s thanks to her, no matter what my husband says. He’s convinced maester Wolkan owns his gratitude for the treatments I receive, but ever since queen Sansa offered us her home during these harsh times, Hai is been the one who’s actually taken care of me and my child.”

The woman's fingers caressed her belly, while a tender smile appeared on her fine lips.

_Did mother do the same thing before she got to know me?_ Alyda had to wonder, in spite of herself. _Was her affection ever genuine and unsolicited before she had to aknowledge what I was?_

She should have had the courage to ask a long time ago, yet had always been too afraid of the answer.   
_Now I’ll never know, no matter what the truth might have been. I’ll never know whence I came from, either._  
_And maybe it is better this way._

_Or maybe..._

“...May I ask you something?” Alyda muttered, feeling her eyes falling to the ground.

The woman tilded her head, curious.  
“If a bold lady asks permission for her bluntness, then she must be about to say something quite indelicate.

“It might be...” she shrugged, giving a curt nod. “...I do not aim to offend you, though.”

“Then speak,” the woman allowed.

Alyda took in a long, cold breath, feeling half eager and half fearful both at the same time.  
“You’re obviously glad about... that,” she grumbled, nodding timidly at the lady’s stomach.

“I am,” the woman nodded, almost wary.

“And would you still be glad, no matter how it turned out to be?”

“I surely hope so...” she blinked.

“...No matter if it looked or... acted like some ungodly fiend?”

The woman was already looking at her as if insane blasphemies had just come out from her mouth.  
“I’ve never put too much thought on that...” she stated, still guarded, “Unlike some men, I don’t think a mother could utterly reject her children for reasons such as these.” 

_Interesting..._

“...Did you want that since the beginning, though?” Alyda tried again, then. “Or...did they force you before you could grow accostumed to the... idea?” 

Lady Alana gave her a bemused look.  
“Force me?” 

“A woman’s duty towards her lord husband is not always a willing choice,” she blurted, remembering septa Sécile’s words, “...Yet they still have to carry it through, isn’t it?” 

_Septa Sècile had to swore herself to the Faith in order to avoid the burden of marriage and motherhood. _

_Our golden knight could only escape the first. _

“I’ve always been glad,” the other woman said, resolute, “and my lord husband has respected me well enough in our bed, if that’s what you’re asking.”

_Of course he has. Otherwise...._

Alyda watched her for a moment, unsure about how far she could push her luck with this half stranger in front of her.

_I shouldn’t be asking this_, she chided herself, _not when I likely know the answer already._

“... And... had he not been so kind and respectful,” Alyda dared to continue, “... would you... could you love his son still...?” 

The woman’s eyes widened like two, big doors facing the bluest sea. Her undeniable astonishment and hesitation, though, were soon replaced by a puzzled concern.  
“Why are you asking these... peculiar questions?” lady Alana said tentatively. “Did someone hurt you, child?”

_I’ve been in many ways, but that ain’t one._

“Not me, no..” Alyda tried to smile, though all she ended up showing felt more like a grimace.

The lady gave her a pair of pitying eyes in return, a kind she wasn’t sure she actually deserved.

“Do you have an answer for me or you’d rather keep it to yourself?” Alyda pressed her, sounding far more distressed than what her poor smirk could defray. 

Lady Alana glanced at her quickly before looking away towards the distant, obscured whiteness of the North.  
“It’s getting too dark,” she said, observing the sky. “Soon my husband will return to our chambers...”

With that, the woman turned and headed towards Hai’s lair, as if nothing ad just left Alyda’s mouth.

She followed her grimly, feeling once again the bouldering weight of an unanswered question which had been torturing most of her entire existence. It was one she had buried under a thin layer of sand, a glimpse always visible and eager to emerge with the coming of every dashing wind. At this point of her life, though, it was almost entirely exposed for her coward eyes to see.

After a walk that ended up seeming far longer than it actually was, lady Alana found herself at the adder’s door.  
Alyda stood a few steps back respectully, waiting for Hai’s shiny green eyes to appear from the dark.

Finally, a creaking sound preempted a venomous voice. 

“Oh, you’ve met I see,” Hai greeted them from behind her half open door. “Did you two get acquainted?”

The lady turned briefly towards Alyda, giving her a nervous smile. “Actually, I think we already saw each other before...”

“You did indeed,” the adder cheered, though Alyda could catch a hint of scorn that Alana didn’t seem able to hear.  
“Here, my lady Cerwyn. This should last for a month at least...”

Hai handed her a small bag seemengly filled with minced herbs, and the lady buried it quickly inside her satchel.   
“Thank you...” she smiled before turning on her heels and walking away.

Alana had to brush past Alyda’s inflexible form in order to get away on a steadyer ground, but she wasn’t expecting to receive a further look from the woman, nor a further word.  
Alyda was already determined to enter Hai’s lair, but then she felt a gentle hand suddenly tugging at her cloak.

“Girl, I... I don’t know how to respond to your questions, thank the gods,” lady Cerwyn whispered, “I’m not even sure I want to know why you’re asking... but...”

“...But?” Alyda urged.

The woman glanced unenthusiastically towards her distant saviour, whom was now entering her den with a thin smirk on her face.

“... But... if there’s someone who might be able or even willing to give you an answer, that’s her.” 

Somehow, Alyda couldn’t bring herself to feel surprised.

She knew what she would likely get from her.  
She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.

_Not this night, no..._

Her grandfather used to call her a lioness, and yet there she was, being a coward at the prospect of an unpleasant truth. 

_When did I become such a craven?_

“Thank you, lady Cerwyn,” Alyda said, in the end. “You’d better go back before your lord husband notices your absence.”


	35. A Child Of Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who was the man?” Hai grinned.
> 
> The girl gave no answer, but she looked away again.
> 
> “...You have no idea, have you?” She chuckled. “Mama must have been very, very proud of her choice, apparently—”

* * *

The rain was finally nourishing the seeds, yet they seemed reluctant to blossom.

Hai had expected something from the girl the very same evening she had spoken with lady Cerwyn, but nothing had came. Still, she knew the blade of the woman's words had scratched her, despite her silence on the matter that night.

_Maybe this time_, Hai pondered observing Alyda in the light of a cold morning. 

As usual, the young lady was sitting in front of her silently, her gaze roaming over each corner of Hai's room in the library tower, looking everywhere except the woman facing her on the other side of her desk.

She would speak sooner or later, Hai knew, as she always did despite her poor resolution.

The need was too much to bear.

“How’s your chest?” Hai asked her.

The girl shrugged uninterested.  
“As always,” she muttered.

“No fits during these days either?”

A small, breathless laugh escaped through the girl's teeth.  
“I’m spending my days surrounded by four walls and meeting people I don’t give a shit about, and the evening is not much different,” she spat. “How could I have fits if nothing gets to touch me?” 

_I'm sure something did. _

“You don’t sound so glad about your isolation anymore,” Hai smiled, amused.

The girl gave her a reproaching look, but didn’t deny her assessment.  
“Wolkan took away my swords,” Alyda snarled, grumpy like a child. “I’d have the cure for my tribulations otherwise, I assure you. It always worked before.”

“I don’t doubt that. Still, I don’t think Winterfell can afford many broken bones in its precious ranks, now” Hai grinned.

“We both know that’s not the reason,” the girl barked, disgusted. “The old man thinks I’m a coward.”

“Precaution.”

“I don’t need a sword to harm! Nor me nor the others...” she grumbled, although mostly to herself. Her nails were already digging in her skin, now reddening with unshed, precious blood. 

“Is that why you keep a wood axe under your bed?” Hai provoked.

Alyda glanced at her with badly concealed surprise before trying a colder approach, a pitiful attempt for someone ruled by the flame.

“Precaution,” the girl mimicked with a sneer, despite her evident wariness. “How did you know...? Did you see me?” 

“I see everything,” Hai chuckled, shifting more comfortably on her seat. “Luckily for you, people around here are far more concerned with an incoming joust and several major issues rather than your felonies. Still, you’d better be a lot more surreptitious during your nightly trips.”

Something suddenly changed on the girl’s face, showing the spark Hai was aiming to ignite.

_Come on, little one._

“I am not the only one involved in nightly trips, though,” she finally said. Conflicted, Alyda bit her lips and tapped on her leg for several, long moments, but in the end she breathed out her curiosity.   
“...Why was lady Alana here during the evening?”

Hai couldn’t help but smile in delight.  
“She comes at sundown, when her husband is busy drinking and shouting idiocy with his men in Winter Town. He’s not too fond of me, you know?”

“Can’t imagine why,” the girl scorned.

“He’s afraid of the unknown, just like anyone else would be.”

“Not his wife, though.”

“...Not his wife,” Hai nodded. “When you keep losing something you want so much, even the unknown can become appealing to a craving a soul.”

The girl looked away, seeking the pale light through the window. “And you had the solution she craved for, she said.”   
  
“Yes.”

“...How did you succeed in something like that?” Alyda grumbled, shaking her head in confusion.

There was almost a touch of tenderness in such view.

“The woman was struck by painful infections every time her unborn started to grow bigger,” Hai revealed. “At first it comes the pain, and then her water would rubify with blood. Eventually the fever strikes, and the ache in her abdomen would cause a miscarriage. The herbs I gave her are meant to minimize the risk of infection.”

“I see...” the girl frowned, “...but why should lord Cerwyn be against your methods if they can save his son?”

“Because they can be unpredictable in their outcomes, at times.”

“Such as?”

“You can’t drink nor eat freely when you’re with child, girl, not that you know anything about it,” she laughed. “Therefore even herbs and fruits can be dangerous for the child’s wellbeing if overused or handled wrongly.”

“Oh..”

“Mind you, though. I believe lord Cerwyn is more concerned with his wife than his son. He might be already convinced they will lose this one too. What he can’t bear to lose is his wife.”

“What do you mean?”

“A miscarriage is unpleasant, no doubt, but childbirth can be deadly. Lady Alana's health and body are already weak and faltering, and despite the man’s assertions against me and my foreign heritage, the thruth is that he’s not so willing to risk his wife’s life in exchange for his child’s.”

“I...I thought the priority of every lord was the securing of his house and name. How can he do so without heirs?”

“Most lords take their wives with such intent, it’s true,” she nodded. “A few fools still marry for love, and lord Cerwyn is among those. Now his house and name might pay the price.”

The girl looked down for a moment, while her mind started working through every twisted thought avaiable.   
In the end, she chose her words.

“My grandfather lost his wife in childbirth,” Alyda murmured. “He’d loved the daughters she gave him for as long as the gods allowed him to keep them.”

“It’s easier to accept what you’re left with when the alternative is nothingness,” Hai said softly, “But should the Stranger come, offering to give you back what you’ve lost in exchange of what is left, would you refuse him?”

“A child is different...” Alyda frowned, sounding less than convinced.

“Is it, little one?” Hai questioned her. “I’ve observed and treated a hundred of expectant women, mostly smallfolks. Whenever I detected a potential threat for their life, their loving husbands would always aim for an early interruption if crucial for their women’s safety. Do you want to know why?”

The grimace Alyda gave her spoke of both reluctance and curiosity.

"Enlighten me.." 

“To an enamoured man, nothing equales the woman he’s in love with, specially when compared to somenthing that still has no face and no name. They don’t feel them grow, don’t feel them move. They’re abstract creatures as long as they don’t draw their first breath. They can have dozens of children they can learn to appreciate and possibly love, but they’ll never have another one of the woman they could lose. Of course they might still enjoy a small piece of what is left, in the case... but I can assure you that most of them would rather keep the whole pie when they enjoy its flavour.” 

Hai could feel the girl's mind roaming through the endless vales of doubt.  
  
“Sons and daughters always leave, sooner or later," she continued. "A lover is usually supposed to stay, at least until death has its due. But men like your grandfather were left with mere pieces of what they used to love. That’s why he died alone,” Hai said, leaning forward “...and no one wants to die alone.”

Hai noticed a somewhat mild reaction compared to the last time she’d managed to trigger a powerful response from her. Heavier breathing. Pained eyes. No fit was about to come, Hai could tell, but her filter might have very well been the major aid behind the girl's restraint.

_She won’t likely stand the light, without._

“I couldn’t watch over him forever,” the girl suddenly said, as blank as corpse. “Sooner or later, some poor soul would have taken me to his castle, and I would have spent the rest of my years making my betrothed’s life miserable instead of his...”

A small chuckle escaped her, willing to try a game Alyda never seemed willing to play during their conversations.  
“And to which castle was your mother brought, instead?” 

As expected, the girl didn’t grant her eyes, but she was still miles away from indifference.  
“No one brought her anywhere,” Alyda claimed sharply.

“No?” Hai provoked, “I took her for a lady. Just like you.”

_Come on, little one. You can't keep playing this game of secrecy forever._

Her taunt attracted her gaze, and in that moment, Hai finally saw another missing piece. 

“Oh, we’re a bastard, aren’t we?” Hai chanted, having to fight back the urge to laugh, “...So I have in front of me a child of shame? One to whom no father was willing to give his name?”

The girl was strangling the chair’s crinkling armrest like hateful necks. Her face was crimson, her eyes were glistening with fury, and the clenching of her jaw seemed capable to break her teeth.

“I’m one too, you know?” Hai whispered with a smile, “I grew up in foul streets while my father and my siblings sat on chairs of gold.”

Alyda’s face softened despite her wrath, but offence was mantaining her mouth shut. 

“Who was the man?” Hai grinned.

The girl gave no answer, but she looked away again.

“...You have no idea, have you?” She chuckled. “Mama must have been very, very proud of her choice, apparently—”

Suddenly, Alyda kicked the table with brutal force.   
Despite the sturdiness, her desk moved and quivered profusely, causing the fall of most of the poised tools standing on it.

This time, Hai couldn’t help but let out a short, sonorous laugh.   
_So that’s what all this is about, then. I was wrong._

“Nice,” Hai congratulated her, sustaining the girl’s fiery, daring eyes. “I like your spirit, I really do.”

“You’ll regret the appreciation soon enough,” Alyda growled.

Hai sighed in amusement, glancing down at the scattered implents. “My apologies, young lady,” she smiled, pleased. “I thought you less prone to offense on the matter.”

“I’m not offended,” the girl snapped, keeping her gaze on the wall. “I simply don’t want to discuss it.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

“I’m afraid I’ll leave, then,” Alyda countered.

“Why?”

The girl shook her head brusquely in response, as if a fly had just hit her ear.

“Little one, what did I tell you before about infesting weeds? You would never not be so craven, would you?” Hai purred.

Alyda glared her with contempt, but Hai knew she’d already won the battle. 

_So, so easy._

“There’s nothing to say,” the girl hissed.

“I think there is. Just look at you.” 

“You said enough yourself on the matter!” Alyda seethed, “That should explain enough!”

“You’re right,” Hai nodded, “I’m sure being a bastard brings enough disgrace to a family name, but that’s not what really bothers you, is it?”

The silence that followed spoke in the girl’s stead.

“...Oh, I see. You’re mad at someone whose name or face you don’t even know,” Hai marveled. “It must be disheartening.”

“You’re wrong,” she suddenly said, while the hint of a cold smile surprisingly touched her lips. “There’s something I know about him.”

“And what might that be?” 

A grimace made of acrimony and disgust changed her features, making her look more like a wild animal rather than a noble, young woman.

“I’ve heard servants, septas and handmaids talking about it all my life... Always whispers and scorn on their wagging tongues, always when they thought I couldn’t listen, always when I could barely understand the meaning of their words,” she grumbled.   
“..I’ve a sole virtue, just one, a gift my mother couldn’t possibly have given me.”

“Let me guess,” Hai smiled, leaning on the table. “A pretty face?”

Suddenly, something in her eyes cracked open, allowing a gleam of truth to leak through. 

“One day, I heard one of the handmaids complaining with septa Myrine about my behaviour. The reasons were always the same, a song I heard hundreds of times... until...—”

The crack in the wall was continuing to spread, dooming its integrity forever. 

Promising.

“...Until?” Hai urged, bored with her distressed silence.

Alyda took a deep breath, and one of her hands started trembling before painfully scratching the other.

“... Septa Myrine then said... it was inevitable for me... you know, to act like some beast...”, she started again, her voice almost a whisper. “...For some beast had likely savaged the poor woman who had me to begin with.”

_Could it be?_ Hai had to wonder, _a fruit of greed and pain?_

Under layers and layers of delusions and inconsistent, erratic statements, It seemed to be the girl’s real convintion, after all. 

In that moment, Hai remembered the sound of fading, distant words, a notion bequeathed to her more than twenty years before.

_‘An unborn child most likely shares his mother’s distress and fears, her grief and misery like they were his own,’_ they’d warned her._ ‘When unbearable, even a miscarriage might accour, but other times they endure the plight until birth, and the consequences survive and grow along with them.’_

Hai had been skeptical, back then, given what she had witnessed instead. But after all, she had carried no fear, grief or pain in her heart at the time, but hate. Only hate. 

_Could that be true? Could your frantic, dashing demeanor be mostly beyond your control after all, young lady?_

But something else was amiss.  
“I can understand the omission about fatherhood, but they didn’t even know who your mother was?” Hai asked, baffled.

“No,” Alyda smiled acridly. “As you said, ‘a child of shame’. No one had to know, though some might have been touched by the slightest amount of suspect, I believe...”

“... Did you tell anyone what you heard them say?”

“Of course I didn’t, I was ten, I couldn’t even grasp their meaning back then... But still, those words remained with me through the years.” Alyda rasped, looking away.   
“I was once led to think that no one could touch her, strong as she was. I was told she was nothing a man could possibly want, and yet I was there nontheless. How could that be?”

If possible, the girl’s face darkened even further.  
“Those hens’ words were mere assumptions,” she continued, “...But then, after years, you’re told that in time of need and lust, anything with tits and a cunt looks good.   
You’re told that anyone alive and warm is acceptable in the darkness of a winter night.   
You’re told that, no matter how strong you are as a woman, even if you have a sword and an armor, a few men will always overpower you, if desperate and eager enough.”

_A sword and an armor...?_  
Hai considered carefully Alyda’s words, determined to put together all the pieces the accursed Crow had left behind.

“This face is my greatest virtue, the only reason why anyone could dare to want me...” she finally muttered, disparaging, “...And I might owe it to a monster.”

_And why striving against it?_ Hai wondered. _Wouldn’t it be more convenient to believe you had no power over inconvenient circumstances? __Shouldn’t it be easier to know that it was never about you? That no matter how good, righteous and amiable you might have been, the woman would have despised you nontheless?_

But she didn’t seem so happy about a prospect of helplessness.  
Even her behavior, that she deemed so undesireable and yet intentional and conscious, had likely little to do with her freewill. It must have been the lifeline of her own delusion for years, though, determined as she was to prove that every rejection she got was happening by her choice. 

Pathetic. And somehow fascinating. But maybe lady Cerwyn’s words managed to put an end to it, leaving to her the sole alternative she was able to consider.

“How could a lady be violated in her own castle without the noticing of her servants if she had no husband...?”

The girl glanced at her for a moment, unsure.  
“She didn’t spend so much time inside her castle. She used to... travel. A lot. I was conceived away from home, in time and place of war. Are you oblivious to what happens during such occurrences?” Alyda asked with a crimson face.

“No I’m not, I’m afraid,” Hai responded, tapping on her desk. “You can’t be sure about it though, I gather...”

“I surmised,” the girl shrugged, looking at her feet.   
“Since I was born, she’d been spending as much time away from me as she possibly could. She could hardly bear to look at me, most of the times. I saw how she loathed my face, my words and my presence. She masked them with dispassion, and I’ve hated her for it. But now... now I can almost understand her,” the girl sighed, a half, stiff smile on her mouth.

“Do you?” Hai had to ask.  
  
“I do. Now I can see she’s been too kind, far more than I could ever be If I was in her place. In spite of everything, she’d even decided to concede me more than what I deserved, and in the end it cost her her life,” Alyda grimaced. “You told me to look at the bright side of my loss, and I’ve found it.   
I won’t have to see her feign spurious feelings for my sake.   
She won’t have to see my face ever again, and I won’t get to read disappointment and shame on hers.   
She’ll get to stay away from me forever, just like all the others, and I’ll find solace knowing I won’t make their days any more miserbale. We all win, you see?” she smiled. 

The girl stood up abruptly then, and, to Hai’s amusement, she decided to pick up the scattered tools from the ground before dropping them unceremoniously on the table whence they had fallen.

“Hope they aren’t too delicate,” Alyda grumbled.

“They are,” she retorted.

“Hope they aren’t too expensive, then” the girl said again.

“They would be,” Hai smiled, shrugging, “...if I had to pay for them.”

Alyda gave her a sour glance and paced towards the small window facing the courtyard.

She stood there for a while, gazing aimlessly outside, until suddenly, something on her face changed.

_Have we restarted a fire from these pitiful cinders?_

“What’s wrong, little one?” she lulled her, approaching slowly .

She didn’t answer, but the tension in her body could be perceived from miles away.

“...Oh, I see,” Hai continued, aknowledging the aim of her attention in the courtyard. “These boys are a lot more eager to spar now that the joust is nearing. The rumors about its planning have been around Winterfell for weeks now, but I believe the queen will give an official speech this morning on the matter. You’re still in time for it, you know?”

Alyda’s jaw clenched.

_But you’re not interested in the sparring of these green knights, are you? Maybe someone else down there has got your attention?_

Hai gave her a side glance, determined to contain her smile.  
“...Do you wish to see them more closely?”

“I can’t be among people during the day,” the girl grumbled.

“No one cares,” Hai shrugged, “Besides, all the important people are in the main Hall as we speak. Maybe you should be attending the queen’s speech too, watching and listening from some place hidden in the shadows of course, where no one will get to see you.”  
  
This time, Alyda gave her her eyes.  
“No,” she rasped. “No, not anymore.”

  



End file.
